


for the ashes of his fathers (and the kingdoms of his gods)

by LadyNimrodel



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Memory Loss - Natasha, Memory Loss - Steve, Minor Character Death, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Oblivion AU, Sci-Fi Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 03:49:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11843397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyNimrodel/pseuds/LadyNimrodel
Summary: Steve and Natasha are an effective team. They work for Shield's Control Station, built after the planet was destroyed in the war with the Scavs. They are left on a broken and barren planet to keep the drones running that protect the hydra rigs, which collect precious water for what's left of humanity, now living in a colony on one of Saturn's moons.What Steve knows is this: the Scav attacks are getting worse, even though they lost the war nearly fifty years ago. In two weeks he and Natasha are leaving to join the rest of humanity. And that neither of them want to leave earth.What he doesn't know is why the Scavs are attacking again, why everything Control tells them feels wrong, and why he keeps dreaming of a man with grey-blue eyes and a familiar smile and who Steve doesn't remember.-Or- The Oblivion AU that no one asked for.





	for the ashes of his fathers (and the kingdoms of his gods)

**Author's Note:**

> First, I want to start off by thanking my brilliant artist, [noncorporealform](http://noncorporealform.tumblr.com/) ,who is not only an amazing artist and who did an incredible graphic AND banner for this fic, they were amazingly patient with me being completely horrible with communication and stuck with me through it all. I really appreciate all your hard work, thank you so much! I want to say thank you to the mods too for setting up the BB and who kept it organized and were amazing through all of this. 
> 
> Also, thank you to my beta. I honestly would have fallen apart without her, especially when my other beta dropped out on me last minute. She swooped in and saved the day and I really appreciate all of her patience and support (no link because she's family and not on the internet lol). 
> 
> Now, you don't need to have seen the movie Oblivion to read this story (as is usually the way with most AUs based on movies or books). It's just meant to be my take on the movie if the characters were Steve and Bucky instead. I've had the idea to write this for more than a year so I'm glad I finally managed to sit down and blast it out for this bang. I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you all enjoy!!

 

 

 

The dream came again last night. 

 

It always starts the same way; he’s on a train and under his head the metal floor rattles as the wheels fly over the tracks. _Klack-klack, klack-klack._ His throat is raw from screaming and there is blood in the back of his throat. There is loss on the back of his tongue. The dream changes then, always at that point. The screaming whine of metal wheels on a metal track becomes distant screams and boots on pavement. It is also no longer cold. But he is staring at a man with shoulder length hair and empty blue eyes and the loss is still bitter and huge on his throat. 

 

The dream changes one more time, always when he whispers a name that he doesn’t know. The same man is there, but he is softer now, eyes full and warm and his face kind. He looks sad even though he smiles and he wears all white and Steve always thinks he looks like something heaven misplaced. 

 

He dreams of the man going into a glass coffin and going to sleep and the loss is so overwhelming, Steve wakes with it trying to hollow his chest out. Make it cave in on itself. 

 

Sleep is impossible after the dream. 

 

Natasha finds him in the mornings, hunched at the edge of their little camp, chin on his knees and confusion writ in the line between his brow. She asks, 

 

“Did you dream of him again?” and her voice is very quiet to keep from being overheard. The sun is already peeking over the horizon and Control will be online soon. They know, even though they don’t know why they know it, that Control mustn’t know about the dreams. Steve thinks of the man with the steely blue eyes and the ache of grief in the back of his throat that won’t disappear no matter how he swallows, and nods. Natasha looks at him for a long moment, lips a flat line, before looking out at the sunrise. 

 

“Me too,” she says. He doesn’t know what she dreams about. She never told him and he won’t ask. But he knows she has the same kind of dreams; of things that never happened and of people they don’t know. Together, they stare out over the flat, broken landscape where a lonely breeze makes dust curl up towards the sky and they wait in silence for Control. 

 

**

 

The year is 2075. 

 

Fifty years ago, the world died. 

 

In the age of superheroes, humanity felt safe in its little corner of the universe. There were stronger, more powerful beings looking out for them against a storm of bad. They grew complacent; they thought that whatever came their way, the Avengers or the X-men or one of the countless others would save them. But when the creatures descended to earth in a rain of fire and ash, they destroyed the superheroes first. And then there was no one left between humanity and what the Scavs brought with them. 

 

When they came, they shattered the moon, causing massive tidal flooding and earthquakes that swallowed whole cities. Then they swarmed over what was left, crushing armies and the super-humans alike. Bombs were dropped, in an attempt to stave them off but all that accomplished was leaving great swaths of the earth poisoned and irradiated. And all this because a couple of low-life AIM flunkies found a way to send a signal out into deep space. 

 

No one knows what their intention was. There aren’t any people left to tell the story and if there were, they wouldn’t remember it anyway. Whoever was left has fled earth years ago and now live in a colony on a moon within the shadow of Saturn’s rings.

 

Maria Hill from Control says it should only be two weeks now. 

 

Two weeks until Steve and Natasha can join what’s left of humanity. For years they have been here on earth, alone, minding the drones that protect the hydra rigs, which collect water to send to the colony. Maria announced their departure with an upward tick of her lips and the video feed always glitches. 

 

“Do you think the glitches mean she’s lying?” Natasha always asks at night, as they lay out beneath a blanket of stars with the sound of their cruiser’s engine cooling, tick-ticking in their ears. It’s the only sound at night. That and the wind and the hushed beat of their hearts. Once, there might have been the sharp sounds of bugs, of rustling leaves, of life. Now there are no trees and not very much life. Steve doesn’t even turn his head to look at her face anymore. He knows the expression she wears and it troubles him. 

 

“The glitches don’t have anything to do with that,” he always says, and his voice echoes hollowly in his own ears, “It’s the radiation.” But Nat doesn’t believe him and he doesn’t believe himself. They haven’t believed in very much except each other and their mission for a very long time now. 

 

What remained of Shield after the first wave of destruction launched the hulking thing they call Control. It curls an orbit around the planet, great and triangular and always watching. An attempt to save what was left of humanity. Shortly after, the drones were sent down, huge spheres that patrol the skies which hunt down the remains of the Scavs and that protect the water engines. 

 

Steve and Natasha, in turn, keep the drones operational. 

 

In their sky cruiser, engines humming at the edge of awareness, they monitor the drones as they criss-cross the land and repair them when they need fixing or fish them out of trouble when they inevitably find it. It’s an exhausting and thankless job that has them scampering all over the earth, around and around, hopping continents and sailing over mostly-dried out oceans. 

 

All the while, Control watches them. 

 

***

 

The monitor on the dash blinks silently. Three dots, all at different locations, indicating downed drones. 

 

In the pilot seat, Natasha is blank-faced, though her hands are clutched tightly around the controls. They’d gotten an early start this morning, before the sun came up. Before Control was scheduled to obit into view. Last night, another drone went offline somewhere around where a city used to stand. A big city, sprawling for miles, filled with life. But now there’s only a couple of spires left poking out of the scorched soil. 

 

“This is the third time in a week,” he says softly over the gentle hum of the engines. The horizon is turning a pale silver now, making the edges where the earth disappears look sharp and crooked. Perhaps there was a mountain range there once, fifty years ago. Natasha makes a soft noise. 

 

“Could just be worn parts,” she suggests, “they are getting older. Just like us,” there’s a flash of a smile, a glare of white teeth in the early dawn glow. He feels his own flare of cynicism. He can’t remember how many years they have been Shield techs but he knows it’s been long enough that they should have started to show age. Grey hairs, lines staying around their eyes and mouths. Yet their hair remains bright and their faces smooth and unlined. Instead he says, 

 

“Seventeen of the last nineteen drones have been sabotaged by outside sources,” he doesn't say, ‘by Scavs’ but obviously he doesn’t need to. There’s nothing else that would or that is capable of it. 

 

“Could have been lightning. Or a windstorm. You know how those are,” she quirks an eyebrow at him, the tiniest uplifting curl to her lips. It’s not a smile, though. It’s more like a warning. Steve looks back out the windshield and watches the ruined landscape race by. 

 

“You know that’s not what’s happen—” he starts but Natasha cuts him off sharply,

 

“Control’s coming online.” Steve shuts his mouth with a click and smoothes out his features. Natasha has informed him several times that the little line between his brows gives him away when he’s worried about something so he’s been practicing erasing it. There’s a hiss of static as the coms switch on and then the big screen in the middle of the dash lights up with video of a bustling control room and Agent Hill sitting in the middle of the screen. 

 

“Good morning, Natasha. Steve,” she says and there is a faint second of static when she smiles, “How is everything going today?” It’s the same question every morning and Natasha answers it the same way she always does. 

 

“Another day in paradise, Maria,” and Steve hopes no one sees how a chill works itself down his spine. Maria nods and taps at something on the panel in front of her. 

 

“I see that you have three drones down today,” she says and her voice is censoring.

 

“Four counting the one from two days ago that we haven’t gotten the parts to fix yet,” Steve responds and catches Natasha’s frown from the corner of his eye. The screen glitches again. 

 

“We’re working on getting those down to you as soon as we can,” Maria says but she’s been saying that for weeks. Steve is beginning to suspect there won’t be any new parts forthcoming, “Status report on the others.” The GPS readout to the left of the com screen blinks as they near the first drone. 

 

“Coming up on drone one-oh-three in the north-east part of sector seven five. ETA three minutes,” Natasha reports before Steve can open his mouth. He bites the inside of his lip and lets her. “Drone eighty five went down in sector fifteen and just an hour ago, we lost three-twenty-seven in sector thirty one.” Sector fifteen is halfway across the world for where they are now. To reach all three in one day is impossible and they all know it. There’s a momentary look of something in Agent Hill’s eyes, a flash that is here and then gone. If he had to guess, Steve would say it was rage. 

 

“You do everything in your power to get all three of those drones in the air before com shut down, you hear?” she says and her voice is as inflectionless as it always is. Steve very carefully does not look at Natasha as she murmurs, 

 

“Of course, Maria,” like by just agreeing they can make it happen. Agent Hill nods and smiles thinly. 

 

“Do you make an effective team?” she asks. Like clockwork. Steve and Natasha both look at her and smile. 

 

“Of course we do,” Natasha says and Steve adds, “the best.” Because they do. 

 

Perhaps that’s the problem.

 

***

 

Steve doesn’t know why the Scavs keep fighting. They lost the war.

 

***

 

They get to the first drone in under three minutes and circle it in the sky for a moment, letting the scanners check the area for any potential threats. Steve peers down and he can see where it landed, leaving a trail of disturbed earth in its wake before it came to a stop. 

 

The area around the crash site is mostly flattened dunes of black earth, the wind making ever-changing patterns in the dark surface. In the distance, the remains of a bridge is a shadowy smudge, the lines of suspension cables dangling like shredded cotton. It resonates with something inside of him, a twang of familiarity that tingles like a mild itch at the back of his mind. Natasha doesn’t seem to share the same flicker of recognition. At least not here. There have been other instances, in other places, where she pauses, looks around with something in her eyes that he has no name for but suspects it often appears in his own gaze. Usually those places that seem to strike a cord for her are cold and even more barren than here. 

 

When the scans of the area come back free of threats, Natasha guides their cruiser down into the broken circle of what was once a baseball stadium. The drone has crashed right in the middle of it, rucking up the stubbly green covering of grass and gleaming like bleached bone in the sun. 

 

“Drone one-oh-three located,” Steve dutifully reports as he slides his sidearm into his belt, throws the bag of tools over his shoulder, and swings the cruiser door open. Natasha follows suit, leaping down gracefully onto the ground. Their boots sigh softly on the thin grass. Here the air smells clean, wafting in through the cracks in the shallow bowl of the stadium. 

 

“Have I told you about the last game of the twenty-eighteen world series?” he asks as they cautiously approach the drone, Nat at his back with her sidearm drawn. He doesn’t touch his. He doesn’t like it; it feels wrong in his hands, though he can’t say why. Behind him, he can practically feel Natasha roll her eyes. 

 

“Only every time we are in the area,” she grouses good-naturedly but she won’t stop him from telling her again. 

 

“It was one for the history books. Iconic,” he begins as he reaches the drone. It lists sadly to one side, just a huge round ball of hulking white metal. He keeps talking as he begins checking it over while Natasha keeps an eye on their surroundings. “The home team was down by two runs and it’s already the bottom of the ninth inning. It all looks pretty hopeless, of course. Everyone already knows the visiting team has won. With two outs and the bases loaded, there might have been a chance but up to bat next is a rookie with a truly abysmal batting record. There’s no way,” as he speaks, Steve opens panels and repairs a few singed wires, re-calibrates the mainframe. It’s rather a mute point, though, as the main fuel cell is missing. As he rummages in his bag for a new cell, he continues, 

 

“So this kid is up to bat, shuffling his feet in the dirt and putting on a good show,” Steve wiggles the fuel cell into place and the drone makes a soft chiming sound as it reboots, “and the first pitch and the second are solid strikes. He doesn't even swing, just stands there and watches them go by. The third and fourth are outside and the fifth he finally swings at and sends it foul,” he pictures it as he and Nat both take a step back from the drone as it cycles up. Shifts so it’s no longer listing to the side. 

 

“What happens then?” Natasha asks just to ask and Steve sends her a quick smile. 

 

“The next pitch is perfect. A textbook strike, right down the middle. And everyone thinks he’ll just watch it sail by. But instead he swings and connects and,” he throws his arms up with a grin and it makes Natasha laugh softly. It feels like a victory. Nat barely ever laughs. 

 

“Home run?” she guesses even though she knows the answer. Steve chuckles a little, listening to the drone slowly come back online. 

 

“Exactly. Grand slam. Hits it so hard, it sails straight out of the park, hits someone’s parked car. The crowd goes wild,” he mimics the sound of cheering and for a moment he can really hear it. Tens of thousands of voices, all raised and joined together in jubilation and disbelief. Natasha is holding her breath like she can hear it too. Like they aren’t the only two there. 

 

The moment is broken by a rustle behind them and they whip around to find a half-starved mutt staring at them with a lowered head and a stiff tail. In the background, the drone beeps to itself. The dog barks at them, teeth bared and Natasha keeps her sidearm raised, aimed at its head. 

 

“Nat,” Steve says softly, taking a step towards her with his hand outstretched, “Leave it.” She looks at him, her eyes sharp but after a moment of hesitation, she does. The dog barks and the drone makes an awful noise, shuttering all the way awake and Steve feels a flash of fear for the dog. A criss-cross of lights catches the dog and scans it before the drone makes a low warning sound it always makes when it senses Scavs. It isn’t ready to shoot but it has already marked its target. 

 

“Get out of here! Go!” he yells, flailing his arms at it. But a creature that has survived this long isn’t afraid of something that isn’t really a threat and it must know Steve does’t really want to hurt it. He takes a sharp couple steps at it, “Get the hell out of here, dammit!” but the dog doesn’t move and the drone makes its horrible grating noise again and begins its last up-cycle. 

 

He jumps at the gunshot and so does the dog, taking off like a shot. 

 

Natasha looks at him, face calm and a smoking hole in the grass at her feet when he turns to stare at her. He doesn’t have a chance to say anything though because the drone is up, hovering in the air and scanning the area with loud noises that sound a lot like a question. 

 

They both tense when it swings around and trains its guns on them, the lights from its scanner running over both of them. 

 

“Techs Rogers and Romanoff,” he says sharply, adrenaline spiking when it makes another grating noise and keeps its weapons trained on them, “Techs Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff,” he repeats, “Back off.” There is a breathless moment where it considers them, its single eye roving and shifting and Steve thinks that it might not stand down this time. But it does with a little accepting beep and it puts its weapons back into neutral position before accelerating back into the sky with a sudden burst of speed. 

 

Steve feels shaky as he watches it go. 

 

“Well, shit,” Natasha says calmly, sliding her sidearm back into her belt and pressing her lips together. Steve snorts. 

 

“I guess it didn’t want to stick around to say thank you,” he says, voice sardonic and Nat flashes him an unimpressed look. Steve puts his hands up because, yeah, not really funny and they trudge back to the cruiser. Before he steps up into it again, though, he turns and sweeps his gaze over the deserted remains of the stadium. Between his shoulder blades, there is a prickle of unease. Like someone was watching them. It is there and gone and he doesn’t see anyone. But he is still uneasy when he slips into his seat and when he looks at Nat, she is looking steadily back, face still. Remote. 

 

She felt it too, then. All she says is, 

 

“One-oh-three repaired and in the air. On our way to sector thirty now,” and Maria looks almost pleased on the screen. 

 

***

 

“Something is sabotaging the drones,” Steve says as soon as Control is offline that night. It skulks in the sky like some ugly beast but if the coms are down for the night, they are safe. He did at least wait until they were sitting away from the cruiser, hidden by a couple jagged boulders. The sun hasn’t set yet but it hangs low, kissing the sharp line of the horizon. It’s a deep orange-red that spreads over the sky like paint dripped into a puddle of water. They hadn’t gotten to the last drone before coms down, like he’d predicted. There will be tight-lipped disapproval and cold eyes to face from Maria in the morning, that’s for certain. 

 

“Or someone,” Natasha agrees darkly, unwrapping their freeze-dried dinner and stoically munching on it like it doesn’t have the consistency of solidified rock paste. Steve looks down at his own and swallows thickly even though he hasn’t begun to eat it yet. 

 

“You don’t think it’s Scavs?” he asks before wrinkling his nose and taking the first horrible bite of what passes as dinner. Natasha looks at him and in the reddish yellow light of the sun, her eyes flash. 

 

“Do you?” she returns, seemingly unflappable as ever but he can detect a tightness around her eyes that suggests she’s got a suspicion and he’s probably not going to like it. What’s worse is that she’ll probably be right. 

 

“I…don’t know,” he says slowly. He wants to believe it’s Scavs because that’s the simple answer, “It could be them, couldn’t it? It’s their M.O. In the beginning, they would pull down five or six at a time.” It had been hell, keeping up with all the fallen drones. They may have won the war but the Scavs hadn’t seemed to know it. And then, after a couple years, the activity seemed to die down and now most of the drones that fell from the sky just wore through their parts. 

 

“Maybe it is,” Natasha says softly, “but it’s been…years, Steve. And now all of a sudden they are starting up their attacks again? What for? What triggered it?” she shakes her head and her red hair rustles softly against the shoulders of her shirt, “and how are there any still left?” Steve bites the inside of his lip and looks back out at the flaming horizon. 

 

He doesn’t know. 

 

There shouldn’t be many left at all, by now. The drones have been hunting down Scavs for fifty years and there wasn’t all that many left right after the war ended to begin with. To their knowledge, no more have come to earth. He and Natasha wouldn’t be able to stay for days outside the safety of base like they have been if Scavs had been spotted recently. 

 

“And what is it, if not Scavs?” he asks, hushed, the back of his neck prickling. Natasha sighs, abandoning the effort of eating her share of the rations, laying back onto the blackened dirt. Her hair flows around her head like a bloody halo. 

 

“I don’t know,” she whispers, eyes full of darkness. The stars are hidden tonight by high clouds blown in from the radiation fields to the north. They are quiet for a long time, letting night solidify and settle around them, like a blanket. Behind the thin clouds, the shattered remains of the moon throws an uneven glow. They should retreat into the cruiser soon. Tomorrow they’ll need to head back to base, a glass tower that perches at the top of a low, craggy mountain, to resupply and wash the charred dust from their hair and clothes. But for now, they lay on the ground, listening to each other breathing. 

 

“It was going to kill the dog,” he says, breaking the silence. Nat taps her foot a few times. Little puffs of dry earth clouds up around her boot. 

 

“Yeah,” she agrees. 

 

“They aren’t supposed to kill anything but Scavs,” he observes unnecessarily. Natasha makes an impatient noise. 

 

“Fuck the dog, it was going to shoot us,” and it was. For that moment of hesitation that felt like forever, Steve thought for sure the drone was going to ignore his voice command to stand down. They don’t hesitate. They never have before, at any rate. 

 

“Something else could have been damaged that I didn’t catch,” he suggests and receives a weary sigh in return. Natasha doesn’t tell him not to be stupid but she doesn’t have to. After all the years they have spent working together and living in each other’s spaces, he knows by now what she’s thinking. And he’s not being stupid because he doesn’t believe his own suggestion, not for a single solitary second. The drones are not supposed to target any biological signatures native to earth. 

 

But an other second and that dog would have been nothing but another ashy smudge on the already blackened ground. 

 

The thought makes him queasy and he tosses away the rest of his rationed dinner, unable to stomach it anymore. 

 

***

 

Base glows softly in the morning light as they glide up to it, the glass catching the glare from the mid-morning sun. It’s hideous, to be quite honest. Cold and austere, it raises above the landscape on tall tripod of metal poles and there is a distinct lack of comfort in the living spaces. Neither of them can stand to spend much time in it anymore and only go back when they are running low on food or just want a hot shower. He doesn’t quite know why. Perhaps it is that there are no walls, just glass. Perhaps because the furniture is stiff and uncomfortable. 

 

Perhaps because he thinks he remembers big, cushy chairs with soft throw blankets and desks littered with drawings and pencils. 

 

It was probably supposed to be home for them but the cruiser feels more like a home than base does. They gather more food rations, clean clothes, another med kit and share a quick look before heading back out to the landing pad where their cruiser waits. Just before he steps outside, though, he pauses to look at the shattered world laying at his feet. There are bumps in the land, as if once mighty mountain ranges have been laid low, looking like a frail, bumpy spine. The small hills run to the north and the south, ranging out of sight in both directions. Beyond them to the east begins the first cracks that become a huge system of canyons where water hides from the water engines and where the rocks aren’t just black but red and gold, orange and blue. No life stirs on its surface. Only the harsh breath of the wind moves. 

 

And he feels, like a hand suddenly reaching into his chest and crushing his heart, a huge, overwhelming grief. It is not the first time he has felt it and it probably won’t be the last. 

 

There was life in this place once, he knows. Huge cities filled to bursting with people, farms and wild forests and oceans full of creatures beautiful and odd. No matter where they have flown, all around the world, staying away from only the radiation zones, the world almost always looks like this. 

 

Steve looks down at it from Control’s tower of metal and glass and his heart grieves, even though he can’t remember clearly anymore what exactly he’s grieving for. 

 

***

 

There is a place, however, a place that they found years ago by accident, where life is beginning to take root again. 

 

In the deep canyons to the east, if Natasha flies the cruiser down between the crags of stone, Control can no longer track them on the coms. There was a storm, the first time they discovered it, a huge crash of lightening momentarily shorting out the electrical systems of their cruiser. They spiraled down into the canyon, fear clutching Steve’s throat like a vice, the ground rapidly reaching up to snatch them from the sky. Thankfully, the engines sparked back to life before they crashed and Natasha, the skillful pilot that she is, managed to right the cruiser. The only thing that didn’t come back online was Control. 

 

In the silence that followed, the echoes ofscreaming wind still beating in their ears, they realized what that meant. 

 

That even during the day, there was a place they could escape Control’s watchful eye. 

 

The canyon opened up into a clearing where a lake glistened in the sunlight and trees and grass ringed its shore and mountains jutted into the sky all around them. Natasha had gasped aloud. They hadn’t seen green like that in…Steve couldn’t remember. Surely they’d seen it before but the leaves and the grass were so lovely and bright they almost hurt the eyes to gaze upon. In the time since, Steve has built them a small house, made of fallen branches and beams of wood they sometimes find in their wandering. It only has one big, open room and in that room there is only one makeshift bed. 

 

But things fill that space. 

 

Things they find, proof of human existence, proof of their history. 

 

Books line the walls, lovingly stacked, most with charred corners and broken spines. Knickknacks are stuffed onto a couple rickety shelves, an expansive collection of bobble heads and plastic cats and figurines that Natasha takes great pride in. There is a record player, still functional (though Steve had to fiddle with it to get it to work again) and a small collection of records piled beside it. Mismatched plates, cups, and silverware clutter a small table crammed in a corner and several balding, shedding rugs cover the dirt floor. Pillows fill out the bed and blankets scavenged from rubble with unraveling edges to make it warm. There’s a chair next to the bed, its seat also piled high with books. The carvings on the legs and back are ornate and once glowed with beauty, though it is dull and scuffed now. 

 

But Steve’s favorite find hangs in a scuffed but beautiful frame on the wall behind the bed. It’s a painting, the strokes still visible and the paint still vibrant, of a vase of sunflowers. The strokes are bold and obvious, the paint still bright after so many years. He remembers it without really remembering, knows it’s something special. 

 

This place is truly home.

 

Not the glass prison in the sky, not the cruiser, and not some colony on a far-away moon. Here, where the air often smells crisp and bright. Where the water laps softly at the banks in the breeze. Where trees spread their limbs and offer shade and protection. 

 

He sits in the grass, his feet bare so he can crinkle his toes against the cool blades of grass, Natasha napping beside him, and he opens a book he found all the way at the other end of the equator. It’s thick and its spine has held all these years. Most importantly, the pages inside are blank and wonderfully thick. They have no pencils but a thin stick dipped in a miraculous bottle of ink and his hands know what they should do. He draws the lake most times, the shapes of the leaves, their little house. Sometimes he draws Natasha too, lovely red hair blowing around her face, a peaceful smile on her face. 

 

Sometimes, he draws things he doesn’t think he really knows. The broken bridge where there was once a city, whole and teaming with cars and people. A row of brick buildings. A fire escape. A gleaming tower with a huge A at the top of it. 

 

A shield with a star. 

 

And sometimes, he draws the man from his dreams. 

 

And all the while, there is something welling up within him, huge and consuming. But he doesn’t know what it means so he keeps drawing until the sun sets, trying to spare space in his book but hungry to see what else his hands will show him that his mind does not know. He only showed Natasha his drawings once, to show her what the man from his dreams looks like. She had looked at it for a long time, face smooth and implacable before she asked, 

 

“Why do I think I know him?” 

 

***

 

Control is predictably agitated that they did not reach the last drone the day before but she is cold in her fury when they learn that four more have been taken down overnight. 

 

Steve knows that Natasha is right, that the drones are being sabotaged. 

 

“All of them better be in the air before coms down tonight,” Maria intones, her voice deceptively measured and Steve feels a shiver roll down his spine. She doesn’t say ‘or else’ but the implication is there. Steve doesn’t want to know what the ‘or else’ would be. 

 

They follow the signal for drone eighty five to a long, flat stretch of dark, sandy earth, the signal beeping urgently to indicate that they are right on top of it. But there is nothing. 

 

“I don’t see it,” Natasha says, voice tight. Steve doesn’t see it either. He doesn’t even see a crash site. No skids in the dirt, no scorch marks to prove that it went down in a storm of fire. Just flat earth, uniform ground where the signal on their dash says the drone should be. 

 

“Let’s land. Maybe we’re missing something,” he says softly and ignores Nat’s sideways glance. She lands but the whole time her stiff posture radiates disapproval. Steve hops out, tool bag tossed over one shoulder and the other hand on the grip of his sidearm. Natasha has hers out as she prowls at his side, eyebrows drawn down sharply over the bridge of her nose. 

 

It takes some searching but they find the reason why they didn’t see the drone from the air. 

 

There’s a cavern that’s narrow and dark, the entrance hidden from above by an overcropping of rubble. It yawns open yards away from where they landed the cruiser. Perhaps it was once a big building, he thinks, staring down into the darkness, buried in a tidal wave of earth. He can’t see anything but from the depths, he can hear the long call of a stranded drone. 

 

“I don’t like this,” Natasha says, sidearm held stiffly at her side and her nostrils flared as if she’s trying to smell the danger. Steve grunts. “I don’t like this at all,” she repeats a moment later as they listen to the forlorn beeping of the drone. 

 

“I don’t like it either,” he agrees and they continue to stand there, staring down into the opening in the earth like that will change anything. Finally he takes a deep breath to steady himself. “You know I have to go down there,” he says and expects the way Natasha takes a harsh breath. 

 

“Steve,” she starts so he turns to her, puts a hand on her shoulder. Looks in her eyes, the green shadowed with some nameless thing. 

 

“It has to be done, Nat. We can’t leave it down there. You don’t have to come down with me but I at least have to go,” for a moment she’s as still and as silent as a statue, her lips pressed together into a pale, thin line. Finally she clicks her tongue and scoffs. 

 

“Of course I’m coming with you, Rogers,” she snaps and shrugs his hand off. She holsters her weapon as Steve puts his bag down and rummages through it for a pair of harnesses, the grappling hooks and some cord. They strap themselves in and anchor the winch deep into the soil between two half-buried boulders of rubble. He gives it a sharp tug for good measure and clips it onto his harness first. When he looks up, Natasha is watching him with that unreadable expression in her eyes. It takes an effort to dredge up what he hopes is a reassuring smile. 

 

“It’ll be fine. Routine, just like always,” he says but her expression doesn’t change. 

 

“Routine doesn’t mean shit if there are Scavs down there, Steve, and you know it,” she responds, voice low and intense. What she doesn’t say is that they usually don’t have to fish lost drones out of deep, suspicious holes in the ground. He concedes the point with a sigh. 

 

“You’ll be down right after me to have my back. I trust you,” he says and pretends not to see the way her expression spasms with sudden emotion before she can get it under control again. For some reason, every time he says something along those lines, Natasha seems to react rather violently. He’s never asked why because he suspects she may not know herself. 

 

There’s a lot of things they don’t talk about because they simply don’t have the memories to fill in the blanks. 

 

Steve descends down into the dark pit, the shadows swallowing him whole. He has his sidearm out and ready but it’s useless until his eyes adjust and by then, he’s standing on the uneven floor of broken concrete. Dusty light spirals down around him in the shape of the hole above his head, making it hard to see his surroundings. It seems the space really is what is left of a building, swallowed whole by the earth and left to rot over time. The only thing he can hear is the scuff of his boots and the hollow call of the stranded drone. It blinks a small, red light from deeper in the cavern but that’s all he can see of it. Something about it makes him uneasy. Surely if it had been damaged above and fell into the pit, it would be right by the hole in the ceiling. Right? 

 

He must stand there longer than he realizes because Natasha’s voice startles him when she calls down,

 

“Everything all right down there?” and he can tell she’s trying to keep some levity in her voice to hide that she’s worried. Though the chill of wrongness hangs in the still air, he tugs the line. 

 

“All clear,” he says and the sudden sound of his voice makes him wince. He dutifully unhooks the line from around his waist and sends it back up to the surface with one more sharp tug. As he does, his toe catches on something and he glances down to find a small, leather-bound book lying at his feet. The spine looks a little broken and a couple of the pages are slightly crumpled but it’s in over-all decent shape considering. Another to add to his collection, he thinks. Then he cracks it open and idly reads the words on the page and he’s hit with sudden vertigo. Something thick and unidentifiable forms in the back of his throat. When he flips the book over to look at the cover, there is only a title in small, gold embossed letters that say ‘ _The Lays of Rome’_. Flips it back over and rereads the words on the page again, 

 

“ _Then out spake brave Horatius/ The Captain of the Gate: /To every man upon this earth/ Death cometh soon or late. /And how can man die better/ Than facing fearful odds/ For the ashes of his fathers/ And the temples of his gods?”_

 

A sharp spike of cold spears Steve in that moment, right through his heart. He touches his finger tips to the letters, mouth dry. Is it fear, that curls up in the back of his throat and makes it hard to breathe? It feels a lot like fear. But he doesn’t know what it is about the words that makes his insides want to shrivel up. Except that he remembers something that he doesn't really remember at all. 

 

He remembers that he had died. 

 

He knows he has felt the cold arms of death choking him but he doesn’t remember how or why but he does know that his body has felt death. His body knows how it feels to die for something nobler than himself. 

 

Steve is startled out of his thoughts when Natasha lands next to him with a soft sound and a puff of displaced dust that dances in the bar of light spilling around them. Her hair gleams red in the ashy light and her eyes are sharp as they track around the space. Shaken but unwilling to bring it up just yet, Steve slips the small book into an inside pocket of his jacket. Nat notices but she doesn't say anything either. She just unhooks herself from the grappling line and steps out of the light into the shadows beyond. 

 

Steve follows a little more hesitantly. Now that he’s paying attention again, he can feel the back of his neck prickling. Like there are many eyes watching them from the shadows. They prowl deeper into the shadows, sidearms drawn and at the ready with the flashlights on them pointed into the shadows. As Steve’s eyes adjust he sees that they are in what is left of a huge library. Stacks surround them like mini canyons, some tilted and leaning, some tipped over, but many others still surprisingly intact. It smells like burnt paper and dust and they step over books of all sizes and in varying degrees of decay as much as they sidestep boulders of concrete and shattered beams of wood. There’s a part of him that grieves to see it, the evidence of a once thriving society now rotting below the ground. He wants to save every book not too far gone and entertains a short fantasy where he expands his and Nat’s little house in the wilderness and fills it with all the forgotten pages of what’s left of humanity. 

 

Longing tastes like ash in the back of his throat. 

 

Then they are standing in front of the stranded drone and he focuses on his task. The drone is lying there listlessly, white metal of its body gleaming softly in the dim light. Its demanding call suddenly grates on Steve’s ears and he sets to work with his jaw set. Natasha scans their surroundings over and over again, tension coiled in her body. 

 

“I don’t like this,” she hisses as Steve looks over the drone, trying to find out what’s wrong with it. At first he can’t find anything but then he reaches into the gaping port where the reactor sits that powers the drone and finds it shaken loose from its connectors. He frowns. 

 

“You’ve said,” he responds absently, pulling the cylinder shaped reactor out to scowl at it. There’s nothing wrong with it, save for a few shallow scratches at one end. 

 

“No, Steve, I mean…” she trails off when there’s a soft scuffle from deep in the back of the library, where their lights cannot reach. They share a look and he quickly shoves the reactor back where it belongs. It reconnects with a small thunk and the droning call cuts off mid-tone. The sudden silence is almost deafening. In the quiet, he thinks he can hear a third person breathing in the room with them. 

 

Then the drone lets out its long, terrible call as it comes back online and it lifts into the air. It is menacing and for the first time in a very long time, Steve is afraid of it. Before they can do anything, it scans the area and as it does, something moves in the back of the library and all hell breaks loose. 

 

Steve lunges for Natasha as the thing starts shooting, crouching over her as fire rains down around them, blasting holes in what’s left of the shelves and obliterating scores of books at a time. In the rattle of the chaos, he thinks he hears someone scream and it is a sickly human sound. Beside him, what’s left of a heavy oak table explodes and fire catches in dozes of places until the drone is done, hovering with its weapons out as it scans again. 

 

It beeps menacingly at them as they slowly straighten and nudges closer. 

 

“Tech Rogers and Romanoff,” he manages, voice shaky and it snarls again at them, weapons trained on their faces. A jolt goes through him when he realizes it’s going to shoot them too. Natasha tries again, her voice much steadier than Steve’s had been and it continues to hover there, malice glaring down at them from its single red eye. 

 

“Stand down!” and when it doesn’t, he yells, “Stand the hell down, you fuck!” The drone considers them for another moment that feels like forever and then it draws its weapons back, beeps softly in acknowledgement then blasts off back out the hole in the ceiling. Steve and Natasha watch it go and he can see her hands shaking just as much as his. 

 

“What the fuck,” Nat finally whispers and Steve wholeheartedly concurs. He takes the library in with a sweeping glance, orange flames flickering along the edges of the shadows, and he feels sick. 

 

“Let’s get out of here,” he says because a sudden wild thought of the drone coming back down for them makes dread shudder up and down his spine. They walk back to where the grappling line still hangs down through the ceiling, their only escape route with their weapons still in hand and unease sparking in the air around them. 

 

“It was going to shoot us, Steve,” Natasha finally murmurs as she attaches the line to her harness. Her eyes are wide and very green when they meet his own, “This is the second time in a row. What if they don’t stop next time?” Steve shakes his head because the answer to that is they’ll both be very dead. If they can’t stop the drones, nothing can. 

 

“I’ll see you up top,” he says instead and watches her ascend until her feet disappear over the lip of the opening. Prickling along his neck like there are eyes sliding along his back makes his breath catch and he resolutely does not turn around. The line is coming back down anyway and Natasha is leaning over the opening, her hair a sharp splash of color against the grey backdrop of the sky. He thinks that he’s safe as he gets the line attached and he’s on his way back up to the surface. He looks down into the pit where fire still burns and a shadow moves across the light of the flames. 

 

He opens his mouth to shout but there’s a gunshot and his line snaps. 

 

And then he’s falling, reaching towards the light as the darkness claims him again. 

 

The last thing he knows is the sharp pain of landing and Natasha screaming his name. 

 

***

 

Steve comes to slowly, registering fading pain in his head and low voices at the edges of his periphery. Many voices. More voices than he’s heard in…

 

The memory isn’t there and reaching for it just makes his head hurt more. 

 

All at once, he comes the rest of way awake, meaning to leap up and get a good look at his surroundings. But he finds himself tied fast to a hard, unforgiving chair. His hands and feet are bound with sharp, heavy wire and he resists the urge to jerk his wrists apart. That would not end well. He sits in a circle of light that is dim and silvery and which doesn’t stray very far past the tips of his boots. Beside him, on another chair and in her own milky pool of light, Natasha is similarly bound. She glares into the darkness in front of them like she could set the shadows ablaze with the force of her glare alone. 

 

“You okay, Nat?” he asks and his voice sounds rough to his own ears. She gives a jerky shrug, not taking her eyes off the deep shadows. The voices around them immediately drop away when he speaks and it fills him with unease. 

 

“Peachy,” she says flatly, flicking her eyes to him for a split second. He realizes she’s not afraid but there is confusion there and a strange desperation he shivers to see. 

 

“Whats going on?” he tries in a low voice. It echoes funny in the space around them and suddenly he’s very aware that they are surrounded.

 

“Why don’t you ask him?” Natasha growls, jerking her head at the darkness where her eyes are fixed. Surprised, Steve jerks his head around just as another dim light, a long way above their heads, flickers to life to illuminate another chair set up across from them. In it sits a figure dressed in ragged clothing that is a strange mix of military gear and voluminous clothing that looks like it comes straight out of a fantasy novel. Is that a cape with feathers? It’s face is covered in a full mask that is also decorated strangely, rusty paint around the rim of the dark glass eyes starting to flake off. 

 

“A Scav!” Steve hisses, yanking at his bonds even though it sends a stab of sharp pain through his wrists. Natasha looks at him sharply and the figure across from them tips its head to the side in a way that makes it look quite odd. 

 

“Not a Scav,” she says in a quelling voice and Steve looks at her in confusion then back at what is most definitely a Scav. 

 

Then the figure reaches up and pulls off the mask. 

 

Steve thinks he makes a sound but it’s lost under the sudden roaring of his ears. Because sitting across from him is a very old, yet very human, man. He stares at Steve with dark eyes that look like pinpricks of burning coal and his wrinkles look like crags in the face of a mountain. Against his dark skin, his white hair is stark, framing full lips and straying back from his hairline only a little. 

 

“Not a Scav,” the man agrees and his voice is soft and rough and deep. 

 

“What…?” Steve breathes. His hands have gone numb. There aren’t any humans left anymore. They died in the earthquakes, drowned in the tsunamis, were destroyed when the Scavs came. Any that were left were taken up to the colony on Saturn’s moon. But the man’s eyes are very human as they bore into him and he feels like he’s been shattered into a million pieces. 

 

“Did you think you were alone here?” the man asks them, eyes flickering from Steve to Natasha and back. There is a sardonic curl to the edges of his lips, “Were you told that you were the only ones left?” more lights start flickering to life overhead as the man speaks and Steve feels his throat clogging as he looks up and up at the rows of people looking down on them from levels of metal platforms. Some wear variations of the old man’s clothing and carry guns in their hands. Others wear softer fabrics and are unarmed. But all have hollow, haunted eyes that watch him through the shadows. He feels each one of their heavy gazes on his skin. 

 

After a beat of silence, the old man sits forward, looking at Steve intently. 

 

“I’ve been watching you, Steve. Both of you,” his eyes flick back and forth between him and Natasha, “You’re curious. What are you looking for?” Steve struggles against the bonds holding his wrists together but nothing budges. 

 

“You won’t get anything from us, you know,” he says stubbornly and lifts his chin. The man just stares at him for a moment, the deep lines in his face making him look sad. 

 

“Yes, we know about the memory wipes. Lucky for you, this isn’t an interrogation. Well,” the man gives him a slow, toothy grin, “not really.” Steve feels his heartbeat spike and he holds himself as still as possible. He can feel Natasha doing the same beside him. But the man just sits back in his chair again and says, “Have you ever gotten a good look at a Scav?” he lifts one eyebrow and shakes his head, “We aren’t alien, Steve. We’re human. There are no aliens.” Steve opens his mouth to argue but closes it again as his eye lift and scan all of the people standing around them. Surely not. 

 

“The drones are programed to kills Scavs, not humans,” Natasha says softly but her voice shakes just a little.

 

“Do you mean the stealth fighter tech that we wear? To confuse the drone sensors. Or maybe the voice scramblers? So your trackers can’t find us. The only thing that’s alien are the drones you both fix and the thing in the sky that brought them here,” when he finishes speaking, there is a ringing silence. In it, Steve is left cold and shaken. He wants to deny everything the man said but the truth is bright in his dark eyes. And all of the people that surround them dressed like Scavs are human. 

 

Before he can say anything, several men and women wearing full kevlar body armor and holding long rifles march up to them, their faces inscrutable and their eyes cold. The old man and another that holds herself like a leader give each other a quick look and a nod. 

 

“This is General Carter. She doesn’t think we should trust you.” She holds her gun on them, shadows pulling at her severe eyebrows. She bares her teeth at the old man even as two others grab Steve and Natasha by their elbows and haul them none too gently to their feet. 

 

“I think you’re out of your damn mind and this could have put everything we’ve worked for at risk, you sentimental old bastard,” General Carter says, soft enough that Steve almost doesn’t hear her. Though her voice is sharp, there is obvious affection in her tone and Steve wonders at it. The old man chuckles a little as he too makes his way to his feet and follows as they are marched into the waiting darkness. Steve head is still reeling as their feet ring out on the metal underfoot, trying to piece through the impossibility of what’s happening. In front, nearly invisible in the gloom, several armed men lead the way through a massive system of winding tunnels. Behind come many more feet and soft whispering voices and the old man and the stern-faced General Carter. 

 

The name strikes something deep within Steve but, like every other resonance of familiarity, it disappears quickly and he cannot call forward an attached memory. Finally, after what feels like hours of walking but could be merely moments, Natasha and he are brought to a halt in the doorway of a small room, where a thin, white light illuminates a large, dented table upon which sits a bundle of strange objects that Steve recognizes immediately. It is a bunch of softly glowing fuel cells that have been stolen over time from the fallen drones. It shocks him to see it, and that they have showed him and Natasha at all. When he glances at their captors, he sees a scowl on General Carter’s face and an almost nostalgic smile on the old man’s. It makes the wrinkles deepen pleasantly. 

 

“Do you know what happens when one of those fuel cells are ruptured?” the old man asks, almost wonderingly. Before either Steve or Natasha could answer, he continues, “Each one a small, nuclear bomb. Could decimate a small city. Or a hydra rig,” he flashes a white-toothed grin. Natasha makes a small noise but when he looks at her, she wears no expression at all. 

 

The old man had heard her too, though and nods, “Indeed. Imagine what ten could do. Twenty,” he raises his eyes to the ceiling and it only takes Steve a moment to grasp his meaning. He means Control.

 

“How do you plan on getting those up there,” he asks, voice coming out rather dry. He is answered with a snort of laughter and everyone’s eyes swing to him and Nat, who leans her shoulder into his side as if she wants to hide from their sudden scrutiny. 

 

“Oh, we aren’t. You are. You program the drones, they will go where you tell them to go,” and now his eyes are hard, burning into Steve. 

 

“We can’t do that,” Natasha says sharply but Steve just looks at the old man. Because he thinks he _can_ do that. It would take nearly dismantling the mainframe to get at the main board but he thinks he can do it. They have been working with the drones for countless years. By now, he knows everything about what makes them tick, alien or not. The old man must read his expression correctly because he gives a short nod and they are forced to continue down the dark hallway. Finally, they are brought to a halt and a huge door slides open. Fresh air blows in, holding a hint of something green with the constant smell of burnt earth. 

 

The old man turns to him and Natasha and there is that flash of something familiar in his eyes again. 

 

“The drones are going to come for us,” Steve says softly, regret surprising him as he says it. He does not want any of these people to die. Whatever the truth is, “They’ll tear this whole place down to find us.” The old man regards him steadily. 

 

“I know,” he says and behind Steve, someone is untying his bonds. Natasha is being similarly freed and they both rub their stinging wrists when the wires fall away, “We have no need to force your hand,” the old man says, “You’ll come back.” He says it with such conviction that Steve is almost inclined to agree with him. 

 

“Why would we do that?” Natasha asks, voice hard. 

 

“A set of coordinates have been loaded into your ship’s navigation system. You should both go, see what’s there,” and the words sound like a friendly suggestion but the expression in the old man’s eyes is heavy and sharp. Steve looks back silently, a slow-building rage starting to swell under his ribs. Not at the man but at the truth he and Natasha had been told that contradicts the truth he sees before his own eyes. 

 

“We still haven’t agreed to help you,” Steve finally says as they are led out the doors and ashy earth puffs out from under their boots. The old man smiles. 

 

“You will,” he says with utter confidence. Then he hold his hand out for first Steve to shake, then Natasha, “I’m Sam, by the way. Sam Wilson,” and his eyes are sad and his hand is strong and dry and cool. 

 

Familiar. 

 

***

 

Their cruiser waits for them tucked up under a shelf in the valley outside the base. The heavy iron doors have already closed behind them with a definitive finality. It makes chills form along his shoulders and arms but he doesn’t say anything to Nat. By the downward turn of her lips, he can tell she feels it too. Something huge has changed and it burns between them, a great beacon of…hope, maybe. Of something starting, huge and looming.

 

He thinks about their little cabin tucked away between the sloping roofs of mountain tops at the edge of a lake. Where the water is pristine and every once and a while a small fish will dart by, a flash of silver under the surface. Where they hide little pieces of what’s left of humanity in their make-shift house. Where Control can not see or touch. That last has always seemed the most important part, though he could never figure why, if he thought to wonder about it at all. 

 

It seems he should have been doing a lot more wondering and a lot less blindly obeying. The thought makes something hard and bitter lodge in the back of his throat. 

 

They don’t follow the coordinates, though their nav screen flashes at them, just a row of harmless numbers. At the end of them, there is a truth they will find or there isn’t and Sam was lying. Either way, the idea of following them makes him feel like he’s plunging off a cliff. By silent agreement, Natasha turns the airship towards the tower, racing across the sky like they could catch the setting sun. Control will be offline in a moment but before it goes, Hill patches through with a buzz of poor radio connection. 

 

“Everything alright down there?” she asks, just like she always does when they go off com. They’ve been missing only for a couple of hours, judging by where the sun sits low on the horizon. It isn’t even the first time they’ve gone off com that week and there’s no hitch of suspicion in Maria’s voice. Steve very carefully does not look at Natasha. 

 

“All fine here, Maria,” Steve says, like he always does. Answer accepted, Maria signs off for the night and they are left in silence to make their way back to the tower. 

 

Steve never realized that silence could shout so loud. 

 

***

 

The dream comes again that night. It feels more like a memory now than it ever did. In it, the man with the blue-grey eyes and the dark brown hair smiles at him over what feels like a century. First, youth makes his cheeks round and his lips curl wicked and bright. He is young, almost impossibly so. He’s laughing at something Steve has said and it echoes oddly in the dream. 

 

Then Steve sees him again, still young but with something dark in his eyes. The first flicker of a shadow, the first hint of fear. He laughs, though, still with a gentle lightness, an arm around Steve’s neck, warm and grounding. 

 

The man wears a uniform, cap tipped roguishly to the side. 

 

There are more smiles that Steve dreams of, but each gets progressively more twisted and pained until the man’s blue eyes look more grey. More like ash. Something happened to him but Steve does not know what. And then the dream changes, to a train shrieking down metal tracks in the dead of winter and the shattered sound of his own scream lingering in his ears. He knows, though he does not see it in the dream, that the man with the grey eyes is lost, that he could not reach him in time. 

 

Before the dream can change again, like it always does, something jolts Steve awake. 

 

Heart racing, he lays in the bed and stares at the ceiling, grief and the echo of a familiar smile twisting like anguish in his chest. Then he feels the rumble under his body, like the whole world is shaking and he scrambles to his feet, kicking away the thin covers. There is a bright bluish light flaring through the tower, too bright to be the light of dawn, though that should be breaking over the land any moment. Feeling ill, Steve races out of the bedroom and into the open living space, where Natasha is already standing at the glass. 

 

A great plume of white fire, in the stunted shape of an inverted thunderstorm, arches high above the clouds in the distance. He can hear it even from where they stand so far away and closed off from the world, a great roar like it is some beast come to devour the world. His hand shakes as he presses it to the glass. 

 

“They wouldn’t,” he whispers, horror making his heart race. Beside him, Natasha is as still as stone but her wide eyes reflect the light of the fire on the horizon. 

 

“They would and they did,” she answers, voice slow and she sounds as shaky as Steve feels. Suddenly, she turns to him, one hand on his forearm and her fingers dig into his skin until he is sure she’ll leave marks behind, “Steve, what if they’re right? What if they’re right and we’re the ones who are wrong?” In all the time Steve has been with Natasha, over all of the years they have worked together (for every morning they assured Maria that they are an ‘effective team’), he has never seen this frantic expression on her face, the gleam of tears in her eyes. 

 

And he thinks about what she is asking. 

 

What if, all these years, they believed lies and have been helping to destroy the very people they thought they were helping? As the evidence begins to mount, he thinks that’s exactly what’s been happening. He feels her fear beat like a hurricane in his heart, trying to strangle the very breath in his lungs and he has to close his eyes against the sudden surge of despair. 

 

“Then we have to try to make it right,” he says finally, past the restriction of his throat. It comes out sounding like a croak but once the words are out in the open, he can’t take them back. Like a great boulder being pushed down a steep incline, there is no stopping what is about to come to pass. He stares for a long moment at the blue plume of fire beginning to fade on the horizon and nods. Natasha juts out her chin, a sharp expression of steely determination making her eyes glint like glass. 

 

“Go get dressed,” she says, giving the arm she’d been gripping a sharp pat, “Control will be online in a half hour,” and he knows what that means. If he’s right about what Wilson’s people have blown up, he suspects they are about to catch hell. They’re going to have to deflect it, so they can start their own version of treason. 

 

He gives the horizon one last glance over his shoulder and goes. 

 

***

 

As expected, Maria is angrier than Steve has ever seen her when she comes online. Her face is a white dot on the screen as they follow a growing path of destruction in the cruiser. It is a new scar on top of the many old scars already torn into the soil, a disruption in the familiar landscape. 

His hunch is proven right as they clear a low hanging cloud heavy with ash and come upon a hydra rig in what is left of an ocean. Beside him, Natasha sucks in a sharp breath. The rig is crumpled in on itself, barely recognizable as a rig at all. Black smoke billows out of it where the explosion had ripped the metal hull open like great claws through paper. It sits right in the middle of a crater hundreds of feet across and water spews out of it in several places, returning to the earth. 

 

“Are you seeing this, Maria?” Natasha asks, voice calm. Of course Maria is seeing it. She’d seen it through the drone’s camera as soon as she’d come online. Or perhaps she knew of it before that. The screen flickers, buzzing momentarily like the connection is poor, even though they know it’s not. 

 

“I’m seeing it,” Maria says and her voice sounds oddly cold. Her rage doesn’t sound like rage at all, “What exactly do you think happened?” 

 

“Scavs,” Steve says, as he and Nat had agreed he should say before Control came online, “I think I found our stolen fuel cells,” there is another spark of static in response. 

 

“Do you think this is a joke?” Maria asks only she doesn’t really ask it. Natasha gives him a quick, quelling look and he realizes his voice must have held a touch of dryness, a hint of irony. He schools his face carefully because he couldn’t bear it if his inability to lietips their hand, especially before they’ve even gotten started. 

 

“Of course I don’t. I’m sorry,” he means to say more but a sharp hiss of the coms cuts him off. 

 

“You’ve both failed in your mission to keep the rigs safe,” Maria says and there it is. A real flicker of rage, the upwards tick in her voice revealing a flare of fury. He looks at the nav screen under the screen that shows the video link to Shield Control, where the line of numbers continues to blink at them. He looks at them and aches. Maria continues, unaware of his inattention, “If we lose another, all is lost. And you will both be finished, do you understand?” neither of them answer but they don’t need to. They know what she means. There’s a pause before she asks, “Are you still an effective team?”

 

“We are,” they answer in unison. 

 

It isn’t them that’s the problem. 

 

But Control doesn’t need to know that. Not yet. 

 

***

 

They have to wait, after that. Wait until Shield goes offline. Maria is cold and furious for the rest of the day and she watches their movements like a hawk as they recuse another drone far across several mountain ranges, a dead sea and what was once maybe an endless plain of grass but is now nothing but a wind-blown desert of barren dust. This drone was not taken down by anything more nefarious then a lighting strike right to the exhaust at the back of the sphere. Steve feels ill the entire time he’s fixing it and when it’s back in the sky, racing away from them with a long, angry growl, he wishes he had the means to shoot it back down. 

 

For a moment, just before she bids them a good night with a final, dire warning of what would happen should another rig get blown up, Steve thinks Control will force them to follow the orbit of the station, so as not to get cut off for the night. That’s happened, a few times in the beginning. But it was exhausting and counter productive so they made sure they’d always have night away from Control’s watching eyes. She doesn’t make them do it but the way she leaves them is ominous. 

 

Natasha breathes out a long breath as soon as the screen goes dark and the coms quiet. 

 

“Do you think she suspects us?” Steve asks into the resulting silence. The engines of the cruiser rumble around them, a soft drone of white noise they have both long since learned to tune out. He hates the sound now, with a sudden fire that makes something impatient prickle through his limbs. Natasha huffs. 

 

“No, not us,” she says with confidence as she touches the nav screen and sets the coordinates into the flight system. Steve’s impatience quickly turns into a shuddering mix of excitement and dread, “She is, predictably, furious that we lost a rig and probably wanted to make sure we do everything in our power to make sure we don’t lose another one.” 

 

“We won’t,” Steve says, though he’s not sure why he feels so confident about it. This one was a test, to see if the stolen fuel cells had enough power to do what Wilson’s people wanted them to do. It’s only a hunch but it’s what he would do, in Wilson’s position. Natasha looks at him askance as the cruiser banks sharply in the air and takes them racing across the burnt plains but she doesn’t say anything. He thinks that, by now, she could probably read his mind. Though no matter how long they’ve been working together, he can never guess at hers. Stars start to flicker to life in the darkening sky and in the center of their windshield sits a bright star, resplendent in the dimming sky. Like an anchor, Steve thinks wonderingly. Like the end to a very long journey, a promise of rest, of peace. 

 

He thinks, with a strange sort of clarity, that he’s not known peace for a very, very long time. Rationally, he knows that’s the truth. There was a war with the Scavs (or with the thing in the sky that is perhaps not Shield after all) and they’ve been fighting them off and on ever since but. 

 

But this feels older. 

 

Like war has been written on his bones since the day he was born. It makes him feel impossibly weary. 

 

The cruiser takes them to the far reaches of the land, out over a gleaming mass of water that has managed to escape relatively unscathed so far. He thinks he once knew the name of it but that has been lost like everything else has. Taken away from them in the service of…well, he doesn’t know really. Like they have been erased from themselves, who they used to be stolen away until all they are left with are disconcerting dreams and odd echoes. He almost surrenders to the resulting burn of rage at the realization even though he knows it would do neither he or Natasha any good. 

 

He wants to. The flare of it is familiar too, like blood on his knuckles, like a black eye, like a broken nose. And he is angry that has been taken from him too. 

 

But then the water gives way to more scorched land and the shattered moon overhead throws pale light down onto looming mountains, higher than the ones that hide their little house, higher than most they have chanced across over the years and his anger is quelled in a burst of sadness. The mountains march in a lumbering, crooked line along the horizon and past it, like the ridge of a spine to some huge monster dead for millennia. He is sad because many of them have been sheered clear through or toppled or even, in once case, hollowed out and imploded in on itself. Only these mountains aren’t volcanic, instead collapsing in on themselves under their own weight. Fifty years ago, they would have been suddenly disturbed by violent earthquakes that pushed them ever higher until they became too massive. 

 

They must have been majestic once, he thinks as they fly over them, in pursuit of a simple line of numbers. But now they stand as a testament to everything that has been lost. 

Above, the stars observe with a cold, uncaring glare that makes Steve feel impossibly small. 

 

Finally, as they begin to reach the other side of the mountain range, they slow when the nav system hums at them, hovering between two ragged peaks where a deep ravine disappears under them, indistinguishable in the darkness. He and Natasha peer down into it as though they can see anything from where they sit. Natasha makes no move to lower the cruiser into the pit. 

 

“Not to late to turn back,” she says at last, to which Steve makes a sharp scoffing sound. 

 

“It was too late to turn back before we even started,” Steve doesn’t look at her when he speaks but he suspects she was asking for his benefit, not her own. He appreciates it but the very thought makes him choke on something heavy in the back of his throat. The thought of going back and continuing to live the way they have been makes him feel ill. Natasha nods and presses the controls forward, lowering them into the darkness between the two mountains. Though much of the range has been ravaged, these two still stand tall, the tips even still rimmed with frost, which glitters in the light from their head lamps as they descend. 

 

It gets tricky the lower they get until they are squeezed between two rock walls that jut high into the sky around them and only feet from the bottom of the cruiser is the bed of a long dried river, smooth from years of cutting water. They follow the empty river bed for several miles, both of them holding their breath as they near a third wall, this one directly in front of them like some huge gate, the face of it as cold and stony as the rest of the mountain range. But Steve stares at it because it tugs at something in the back of his mind. 

 

He starts to ask in a hushed voice, “Does this seem…”

 

“Familiar?” Natasha finishes for him and snorts, “Yeah and saying that but not knowing why it’s familiar is getting really tiring,” Steve grits his teeth because she’s not wrong. The nav system gives one final beep before going quiet, indicating that they’ve reach their destination. Steve stares at the formidable wall in front of them, illuminated only by the lights on the cruiser. 

 

“What the hell do we do now?” he asks, incredulous, because that can’t be it. Despite the tickle of familiarity in the back of his mind, he has no idea what they should do next. He doubts blasting the wall with the cruiser’s weapons would do any good, though if worst comes to worst, he supposes they could always try it as a back-up plan should all else fail. The problem is, he not even sure what that ‘all else’ should be.

 

“We should at least get out, have a look around,” Natasha suggests softly, though there is a fine tremor in her voice, as if she’d like nothing more than to stay right where she is. Steve rather agrees. She lands the cruiser anyway, as gracefully as she always does and they arm themselves with their side arms and flashlights before stepping out of the cruiser’s belly into the cold air of the mountains. 

 

The ground under foot crackles faintly and Steve breathes out puffs of frozen air, plumes that bleed into each other as he exhales. He can feel the bite of the cold, though not as keenly as Natasha seems to because she shivers despite the protection of the extra jacket she threw on before they stepped outside. Here they can’t see very much at all, save for the section of the wall the cruiser’s lights are aimed at. Overhead, the silver shine of the stars is no less bright but they seem very far away, viewed overhead through the small keyhole between the mountain peeks. It is a lonely place, more so than anything he’s encountered so far. The rest of the world may be a barren, burned ruin but here, it is as if disaster could not reach it, it is so remote. He thinks that this place probably looked very much the same as it always has, minus the river that used to run through here and the toppled peaks they passed earlier. 

 

Together with Natasha, he makes his way up to the wall, touching a gloved hand to its rough surface. This close to it, Steve feels no bigger than the smallest speck of dust, like he could be crushed to fine powder under the mountain’s very presence. Though he loses sight of it past the artificial lights, he imagines it would touch the very roof of the sky should he look up and see the top of it. He turns to Natasha, ready to ask her what she thinks they should try and finds her staring at his hand where it still rests on the cold rock. 

 

“What is it?” he asks softly and the sound of his voice rattles through the deep gully. She doesn’t answer, just looks at his hand and the wall for a moment longer. Then she pulls off her glove and copies him. 

 

At first nothing happens, and a flicker of bewildered disappointment dashes across her face. But before she can remove her hand, from deep inside the mountain there comes a slow, churning grind that sets Steve’s teeth on edge. Startled, they leap backwards, hands on their side arms as the sound builds and a section of the wall in front of them shutters. For a moment, he thinks that the whole mountain is going to come down on them, or that the racket is going to draw undesirable attention, though no amount of noise has woken Control after sunset before. 

 

But, after a long, breathless moment during which the mountain wall continues to growl and rumble, neither of those things happen. Instead, a large opening begins to appear, a slit in the face of the mountainside widening until a huge entrance yawns before them. 

 

“Holy shit,” Natasha breathes just as Steve asks, 

 

“How in the hell did you know to do that?” and his voice comes out strangled. The opening gapes at them, pitch black even in the lights from the cruiser. He can just make out the dull shine of metal walls and he can smell the air as it escapes, musty and untouched for probably more than fifty years. It sends a chill down his spine. Natasha is staring at her own hand this time, eyebrows still high with surprise. 

 

“I have no idea,” she admits, finally looking up to blink at him, “I don’t even know why I did that. Your hand on the rock just…looked like an answer, I suppose,” and he nods because he understands, though he’d not had the same flicker of familiarity as she did in this particular instance. They stand and look at the wide opening, almost sinister in its mystery before Steve firms his jaw and squares his shoulders. 

 

“We came all the way here. It would be a waste to not find what the old man sent us here for,” he says, though he feels more like turning back to the cruiser and making a run for it. They both switch on their flashlights and let the beams lead the way into the cold cavern that has opened for them. 

 

At first, there is nothing but unnaturally smooth rock walls and their feet ring on a metal floor. Just inside the huge door they find a security pad that blinks a dull light at them when Natasha touches it. There’s a layer of icy dust on it but the door rumbles closed behind them with great reluctance, leaving them in the darkness with only each other and their suddenly wholly inadequate flashlights for company. Steve catches a look at Natasha’s face, which is grim and set, before turning and leading the way down the into the mountain. 

 

They walk for a long time, a never ending slope into the belly of the mountain. The smooth walls and the metal floors that surround them never change and he can see in the light of their flashlights that there are evenly spaced lamps on the walls. Those remain dark and lifeless. Some are even shattered, especially in the beginning of the tunnel, the glass crunching underfoot. And then the light of their flashlights illuminate another door that marks the end of the tunnel, much smaller and more inviting than the first. 

 

There is a large A punched into the cold metal and it scratches at something in the back of Steve’s mind. There’s another security pad next to this door, identical to the one they found on the inside of the first one, and he shares a look with Natasha before he pulls off his glove and reaches out to press his hand to the glass. The resulting line of blue light that appears under his hand is sluggish but it happens and he is even more baffled when the door slides smoothly open.

 

“What is going on?” he breathes as a light flickers on in the huge room on the other side of the door. The light is dim and gutters a little and it’s the only one that has any life left in it, despite the fact that he can make out more in the shadows. Natasha’s face is closed off and her sidearm is drawn, her lips a pale, bloodless line. 

 

“I don’t know, Steve,” she whispers back even though there’s no need to be quiet. 

 

They both stand just inside the doorway that has already closed behind them, flashlights pointed into the big room where the beams of light catch on the edge of a couch, a table, a dusty countertop. Steve steps deeper into the room, taking in as much as he can under the pale, single light overhead and his inadequate flashlight. It’s quiet here, their footsteps muffled by expensive rugs and concrete floors. He wonders, a little wildly, about the person that carted all of these expensive things into the belly of a mountain that has probably always been far out of reach for humans. 

 

Steve is just running his fingertips over the back of a long, slightly worn couch when more lights flicker on overhead, flooding the big space with light. Startled, he turns to find Natasha towards the back with her hand on a switch mounted on the wall, where she shrugs at him, unrepentant for surprising him. It’s better, though, giving them the whole lay of the space at once. He takes it in with a sweeping glance, trying to catalog it all. 

 

Steve stands in what was clearly a huge living space, with a circle of couches and chairs that have a layer of fine dust on their cushions, broken up with small side tables. Some have lamps on them, others have vases or glasses, clearly left after being used and forgotten. Across from the couches is a huge, dark screen that has a crack down the left side, spidering out across the dark surface. On the other side of the room is a kitchen, with a long, broken countertop and dark appliances that have surely been dark for decades. It makes him uneasy, looking around at a place where people used to live. More so that it is again making familiarity spark in his mind. 

 

They prowl through the big space, looking carefully into every crevice and cabinet. There’s a whole pantry full of non-perishable foods, tins and containers covered in dust, cabinets of glasses and plates, pots and utensils. There’s a refrigerator that Natasha violently refuses to open (Steve doesn’t blame her in the least) and then three more pantries, each one filled with even more food. They share a look over the last one and Steve knows he’s wondering the same thing she is; were there a lot of people here at one time or were there a few expecting to be here for an extended period of time?

 

He pauses by the cracked countertop, runs his fingers over the fissure. 

 

As chilling as it is to think, his latter speculation is more likely. The more they look, the more signs of damage appear. There’s the cracked screen in the living space that he’s already noticed but also several shattered glass tables, a big cushy chair that looks like it’s been exploded, scorch marks on the stone walls. 

 

It sends chills down his spine, though he doesn’t know why. They have seen plenty of haunting reminders of humanity’s remains. Yet somehow, looking around here, it strikes close to home. 

 

They prowl through the large living space down a long, dark corridor where only half the lights are working, dim and flickering and ominous. On both sides there are doors that open to bedrooms, some intact, others not so much. The bedrooms are all generally the same, with stone walls and large bathrooms. At least, the ones that are still in one piece. He wonders about the others and the long scorch marks along the hallway. There’s a staircase at the end of the hall and an elevator that doesn’t work. Methodically, they work down several levels that hold a more bedrooms, several huge training rooms and at the very bottom what looks like a lab that’s bigger than any of the previous rooms they’ve come across. More lights work down here, illuminating what looks like a war zone. 

 

“Something bad happened here,” he mutters, taking a couple steps into the room. There are huge chunks of the ceiling and walls gouged out with debris littering the room. There’s nothing identifiable beyond some scraps of metal, broken lab equipment, and huge steel beams. Natasha snorts behind him. 

 

“Captain Obvious,” she says fondly and he starts to laugh but then he hears an echo of someone else saying that in his head and he nearly chokes on it. Before he can say anything though, something shining catches his eye in the rubble. A small flash of gold amid the destruction. His boots crunch on glass and rocks as he walks to the place he saw the shine and he bends down to pick up a broken metal face mask. It’s heavier in his hand than he expected and looks familiar as it gleams in the dull light. 

 

Steve takes it with them when they leave the room, fingers clenching hard against the faceplate. 

 

“This is the last level,” Natasha says in a neutral voice when they step back out into the corridor, eyes darting to the faceplate and away so quickly he barely catches it. There’s a lump in his throat that he cannot explain and he has to look away from her before she can see. Instead he focuses on the blank corridor, tucking the faceplate inside his jacket. It is indeed the last level but something about that doesn’t feel right. 

 

“No,” he says slowly, “there’s something more.” Steve doesn’t know why he says it or even if it’s true. But he looks at the bland face of the corridor walls and knows that there’s more to this place than what they’ve seen so far. Natasha doesn't question him, though she firms her stance behind him when he walks over to the far wall to contemplate it. Several feet to his left, the rock is smoother than the rest of the wall and he reaches out slowly to press his palm to it. It is cold under his fingers but the surface lights up with a pale blue shine, scanning his hand print and then offering a peppy little ding, like it is satisfied with his offered hand. 

 

A panel opens in the wall, much like the first two times, though this door is much smaller. Just big enough that he doesn’t have to duck to step through. As it does, a soft, female voice murmurs, 

 

“Welcome, Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff,” they start at the unexpected sound, sharing wild, confused looks. 

 

“The last two didn’t talk,” Natasha hisses, staring into the black hole of the open doorway in front of them. Steve swallows, feeling nerves prickle along his skin. 

 

“Perhaps the technology is breaking down faster at the surface,” he says quietly, though the walls offer them no answers. Just a blank open door and the mystery it holds beyond. They wait another few seconds but nothing else happens. Finally Steve lets out the breath he’d been holding. Whatever it is that Wilson wanted them to find, it’s buried down here in the darkness. 

 

They start down steps that wind down into the very heart of the mountain, flashlights held carefully so they don’t slip on the slick floors. About halfway down, Natasha says, 

 

“I don’t like not knowing how this place knows us.” Steve heartily agrees, though he doesn’t know why the voice called him “Captain” and Natasha “Agent”. It is even more disconcerting to think that it knows them from a past life they can’t remember. He hums softly to agree with her and steps off the last stair to come face to face with another door, this one undisguised and clearly meant to keep things from getting into it. But it clicks open for them when they step up to it, hissing as it releases the air that has been pent up behind it for decades. 

 

Here all the lights work, flickering on without prompting and they find themselves in a medical facility. 

 

“Odd place to put this,” Nat comments absently, stepping in so the bright lights burnish her red hair silver. Steve follows her in, taking in the pristine floors and walls, all white and green and soothing. It is indeed a medical facility, though the monitor screens above the line of beds on the far wall remain dark. It is an odd place to keep a med bay. This out of the way, it would be hard for anyone to reach quickly should they need it in an emergency but he thinks they aren’t really seeing the whole picture here. 

 

“Is it?” he asks instead, running his fingers over a dry blanket pulled tight over one of the bed frames. He can see it, people hiding this down here to keep the injured safe. Despite the conflict that clearly happened on the other levels, there is no damage here. If he hadn’t just walked through the remains of a war zone, in fact, he would have though this just a place abandoned by time, left to rot far away under a mountain. No one had stayed here, whatever the outcome had been above. None of the beds are disturbed and there are no remains lurking in any corners. 

 

Steve wanders deeper into the facility, taking in a room walled off by glass partitions clearly built for surgery, another with more beds and more dark monitors and yet another that was locked tight. When he peers through the glass window, he sees hundreds of shelves holding countless little glass bottles and boxes of medicine, all neatly organized. In no place does he see signs of human habitation. 

 

The whole thing makes him uneasy. 

 

In the very back, there is another door and he feels like he’s walking through a haze as he steps up to it, presses a series of numbers on the pin pad beside it, though if asked, he would not be able to repeat them or explain why he knew them. The door groans open and a single light in the middle of the ceiling flickers on. 

 

This room is empty save six human sized tanks, lined up along the back wall. They are each hooked up to a line of computers to his left, though all stand empty save one. He can hear, in the stillness of the room, the faint buzzing of electricity. The sound makes his heart beat a little faster. A generator that has lasted all this time can only mean that whatever it’s powering is very important. A light blinks on the only tank in use, soft and gentle, like it’s trying to catch his attention. 

 

“Steve?” Natasha murmurs from behind him but he can barely hear her voice over the buzzing of his ears. Because he has stepped up to the occupied tank and peered inside. 

 

For a moment he forgets to breathe. 

 

There, in the tank, is the man from his dreams. 

 

His eyes are closed as if he is sleeping, though his face is lined with pain so if he does sleep, it is not a peaceful one. But he knows this man, just like he knew the code to get in the room, just like he knows the mountain bunker they are in. Steve doesn’t know how long he stands and stares at the familiar face behind the glass but it is long enough that he has forgotten Natasha behind him. He jumps when he feels her hand clutch his forearm, ripping his gaze away to stare wildly at her. 

 

“What is it?” she asks, standing on her tippy-toes to get a look at the man in the tank. Then her eyes widen and she whips around to stare at him, “Steve, that’s—” she starts, clearly recognizing the man from the drawing Steve once showed her. He nods numbly. It takes a moment for Steve to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth. 

 

“That’s—he’s—,” Steve swallows and finds himself staring back at the man, “I dream about him, yeah,” he finally says, “He’s the one I see,” there is a long, heavy silence after he finishes talking, so that the only sound is that of his breath sawing in and out of his lungs. 

 

“Shit,” Natasha says with so much depth and feeling he blinks at her in confusion. She looks at him, hands balled at her side and says again, “Shit!” Steve watches her as she begins to pace and doesn’t think he’s imagining her face looking more pale than usual. 

 

“What?” he finally asks, feeling cold inside. Natasha whips around and pins him with a hard stare. 

 

“What?! Do you know what this means?” He bites his lip because there’s a dozen things he could say to that and doesn’t know which one to start with. She doesn’t wait for him to answer, though, “It means the dreams are real! You dream of this man and I dream of death and horror. If the man from your dreams is real, then that must mean everything I dream is real too. I don’t…” she breathes in a harsh breath, looking more terrified than he’s ever seen her, “I don’t think I can handle it, if the things I have seen in my nightmares have really happened, Steve.” He wants to hug her, pull her close and offer her some comfort. But he doesn’t because he thinks she would sooner knock him on his ass than allow it. Instead he turns back to the tank and finds he’s been stroking his fingers along the glass casing. 

 

It is very cold to the touch. 

 

It is also very, very familiar. 

 

With an effort, he pulls his hand away.

 

“I think something really horrible has happened, Natasha,” he says finally, “I think the world was broken and we have only helped make it that way. What happened before is part of a past we may never get back,” he swallows thickly and finally reaches out to touch her shoulder, “We’ve been living the nightmare too.” She doesn’t answer but she doesn’t need to. Waking or asleep, horror has followed them like a dogged shadow. He knows she feels the sudden weight of suffocating guilt and rage just like he does. He won’t ask her what she dreams of. She has never told him and that won’t change. But it must be something truly terrible to put that expression on her face. 

 

Steve looks at the man in the tank and thinks of a name that refuses to solidify in his mind.

 

“We should get him out of there,” he says softly, “he’s waited long enough, I think.” Natasha makes a sound of agreement, clearly making an effort to pull herself together. She knows that frayed edges are the last thing they need. He hopes that she takes time later to do the grieving she needs, if they get that time. 

 

“We can’t wake him here, though. The equipment is out of date and likely won’t work very well,” she’s right, of course, though Steve has a sudden, violent urge to rip the tank apart so he can save the man inside. The urge to get him out now, right now, immediately, makes Steve’s hands tremble. He clenches his fists at his sides as Natasha moves to the control panels and stares at the man frozen behind the glass.

 

And he thinks, though it is a strange, fleeting thought, that he knows what the man’s lips feel like against his own, that his long hair would tickle Steve’s cheeks when they kiss, that his hands are strong and wide. One of warm skin, one of cool metal. 

 

He thinks that he once knew what it was to love this man. 

 

The echo of something that might have been real makes his heart ache because when he reaches for it, the memory of warmth and shared breath, all he finds is nothingness. 

 

***

 

They manage to unhook the tank and transport it all the way to the top level of the mountain base with the helpful use of tiny repulsers that line the bottom and Steve’s brute strength. Every time the tank is jostled, he is almost sure the man inside will wake but when Steve glances at him, the man is as still and quiet as he’s ever been. He and Natasha are silent the whole way, except to give each other quick pointers. They have been working together for so long, oftentimes words just get in the way. 

 

Finally the huge door carved into the mountain face rumbles closed behind them, once again becoming a towering, seamless wall of stone. His breath fogs the air as they move the tank to the cruiser and Steve takes a moment to breathe in the cold air, lets it sting his lungs. It smells so clean here, not a hint of burnt soil or ash. It reminds him very much of their little cabin by the lake and something in him aches with longing, though he cannot say what for. When he opens his eyes, he finds Natasha watching him, her eyes glittering in the lights of the cruiser, though she doesn’t say anything. She just helps him guide the tank into the hold, securing it so it doesn’t slide around. 

 

She is silent as she swings the cruiser around, as she threads it back through the deep ravine, all the way through the cold, lifeless mountains, their noble heads bowed and frozen. Steve stares out the window and watches as tiny white flakes begin to swirl around the cruiser as it cuts through the air. 

 

Finally, when the silence becomes more oppressive than a relief, he sighs and says, “Just say it, Nat.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her flick a few strands of hair over her shoulder, a clear indication she’s been caught out. 

 

“Say what?” she asks and he narrows hie eyes when he looks at her, unimpressed. She quirks a crooked smile at him, “Alright, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” and it eases a tension that Steve didn’t realize had been building. He returns her smile with a lifted eyebrow, “It’s just…I don’t like bringing this man back with us.” He isn’t surprised by her words but he is surprised by his own sudden flash of rage in reaction to them. 

 

“You think we should have left him there?” he demands incredulously, only to have Natasha frown at him. 

 

“No, Steve, that’s not what I’m saying. I agree we need to wake him and find out what’s going on but he’ll be in danger. As soon as Control comes online, they’ll know,” she’s right, of course, he knows she is. 

 

“We don’t have any other option. You said yourself that we couldn’t wake him without the med equipment at the tower,” Steve responds softly, even though worry gnaws at his insides. 

 

“We can’t, but we need to come up with a plausible story or…” she doesn’t explain what ‘or’ means but Steve doesn’t need her to. He glances over his shoulder into the cargo bay in the back of the cruiser and tries to think of something they could say that Maria will believe. But all that keeps coming up is the image he sees too often in his dreams, of blue-grey eyes and lips that curl sweetly at the corners in a smile. The thought makes him feel almost giddy, his fingertips and toes tingling in terror and anticipation. Abruptly, he wonders how Wilson had known where to find the man that Steve remembers in his dreams and the bubbly feeling quickly turns to lead. 

 

“How about this…” Natasha begins, working out a simple enough story they could use. Steve stays quiet and lets her talk. She’s always been the better liar of the two of them anyway. 

 

He stares out the window as they race back over the landscape and listens. And hopes. 

 

 

***

 

They are nearly back at the tower, the sun flaring bright over the horizon behind them, when Control comes back online. By this time, they’ve worked through their cover story and Steve hopes the poker face Natasha has repeatedly tried to teach him works today. The first thing Maria says is, 

 

“Good morning. My scans are picking up an additional sign of life on your cruiser today,” she says it like she’s commenting on the status of the hydra rigs, cool and unruffled. Steve nods. 

 

“Bit of an adventure last night, Maria,” he remarks, giving her a wry smile that Natasha swears will disarm anyone, “We were finishing our last patrol last night when we were attacked by Scavs. We thought we could hold them off but we got overrun and had to take shelter in the caves up north. Turns out, someone else had tried to hide there too,” he doesn’t bother to hide the little glance he shoots over his shoulder and Maria’s face is impassive, just as it always is. 

 

“He needed our help,” Natasha says softly and the video link to Control flickers and buzzes. But Maria doesn’t seem very ruffled by it. 

 

“Well done, you two. I see you still make an effective team,” and they both smile mildly. 

 

“The best,” Steve answers, watching the tower come into sight with his heart beating wildly in his chest. 

 

Control doesn’t know how true that is.

 

***

 

Steve stands in front of the tank, staring at the man inside. They have set it up in the lab below the living deck, hooked up to the power generators and the lights of the vital signs array blinking softly. The harsh lights of the lab make the man’s skin look almost blue, though that could also be from being frozen for fifty years. His palms tingle again, aching for some kind of action but there is nothing he can do at the moment. Already the defrosting sequence has started, gradually bringing up the temperature within the tank. It could take hours, Natasha reassured him. Dragging the man out immediately into the warm air could very well kill him. 

 

So Steve waits. And as he waits, he catalogues the man’s still features, wondering if they will look as they had in his dreams when they are animated with life and warmth. 

 

Somewhere during his silent vigil, Natasha reappears at his side with dinner and a small frown pinching the edges of her lips. Though he doesn’t feel like eating, he picks through the food, gaze wandering back to the tank again and again. He only manages half the plate before he gives up, placing it to the side on the floor next to his hip. 

 

“Is something wrong?” he asks Natasha after a long moment of feeling her frown like it is a physical thing. Her eyebrows shoot up and her lips soften into a wry, twisting smile. 

 

“There’s a lot of things wrong. You’ll have to be more specific,” Steve tips his head in acknowledgement. Touché. 

 

“You looked troubled, that’s all,” he answers softly. She looks down at her feet, her arms wrapped around her knees, and visibly hesitates. 

 

“This whole thing is troubling. Control is troubling, this man is troubling and humans being killed by drones is troubling. I don’t…have a good feeling about all of this,” she pauses, licks her lips, tucks a curl of red hair behind her ear. Suddenly she looks small and vulnerable and Steve feels a surge of affection for her. Wordlessly, he spreads one arm out in invitation and she scoots over until he can drape it over her shoulders and let her press into his side, “I think Wilson is trying to help us, though,” she adds after a moment of allowing herself to be comforted. 

 

When Steve peers at her, her green eyes glitter dangerously. 

 

“They’ve taken seven drones down in the last hour. Maria is furious,” she says it with a hint of glee in her voice and Steve bites back his own smile. 

 

“They are providing us a distraction,” he states wonderingly. Seven drones in that short a time is unheard of. He didn’t think it was possible. But they did it so Steve and Natasha could find the man in the tank and wake him. Steve turns his eyes back to the glass window in the tank and thinks he sees a flicker of a dark eyelash. 

 

The vital array is blinking faster, all of the lights green and bright. 

 

“We should get him out,” Natasha says. So they stand, Steve’s knees feeling a little rubbery, and finish the process of waking the man. The number sequence to open the tank is in Steve’s fingertips though he doesn’t know how he knew it and the tank opens with a hiss of decompressing air and the slightest smell of ozone. 

 

And there is the man, still asleep against the cushioned back of the tank, hair dark and still crinkly with frost. He is a tall man, nearly as tall as Steve himself, with the hard curve of muscle obvious under his soft black tank and sleep pants. Though he is clearly strong, his bare feet and soft clothes make him look vulnerable. Steve wants to touch him, wants to reassure himself the man is real. Then Steve catches the glint at his left side and sucks in a startled breath.

 

His left arm is metal, a grey so dark it’s almost black, with a white star in a blue and red circle on the bicep. 

 

The symbol is familiar in a way that sends an ache through Steve’s heart. 

 

He and Natasha manage to move the man to the single cot across the lab, settling him with blankets around his torso and socks on his feet. Though his skin is still cool to the touch, almost as soon as they’re done he begins to stir, life returning to his body in incremental twitches and breaths. Steve watches each movement like he can make the man’s eyes open and focus faster. 

 

They do, eventually, opening for a few moments at a time before they stay open, the haze lifting so the man stares at the ceiling for a long moment. There is a fine tremor working through his body, the deep cold catching up with him now that his conscious and despite the warmth of the room and the many blankets piled on top of him. Steve steps closer to the side of the cot despite himself, wanting to see the color of the man’s eyes. To see if they are the same blue-grey they are in Steve’s dreams.

 

They snap to him when the man catches his movement out of the corner of his eye and Steve feels like he’s been blindsided. They are the same color, silvery-blue, but that is not what makes everything in Steve freeze. When the man sees him, his lips curl into a lazy, happy smile and his voice cracks when he says, 

 

“Hey, Steve,” and Steve forgets how to breathe. 

 

***

 

The man knows him. 

 

He knows Steve’s name. His eyes were warm with recognition when they alighted on Steve’s face for the first time. Like he was expecting Steve to be there when he woke up. In return, he knows this man, he can feel it, recognition just out of reach, behind a locked door. It makes him feel clumsy and off-kilter, which is why he responds to the man with an abrupt, “How do you know my name?” At his shoulder, he hears Natasha click her tongue in exasperation, as if to remind him that sometimes he is like a bull in a china shop. She doesn’t jump in, though, watching the man struggle into a seated position, a thick blanket hanging off his shoulders, his laugh small and rough. 

 

“Hilarious,” he says, voice gravelly and flat but his eyes amused. Yet when Steve and Natasha continue to stare at him with stony expressions, the amusement wavers on his face. His pale eyes dart between them and a horrible kind of realization settles over his face. It hurts something deep inside of Steve that he can’t name. 

 

“Really?” the man asks, suddenly sounding small and hurt, “You really don’t know me?” Steve shakes his head even though he wants to explain. Explain how he maybe does know this man, even though he’s forgotten everything about him. The man looks to Natasha, eyes now pleading, only to have her shake her head as well. He sits there, devastation flashing over his face, before he looks down at his lap, long, damp hair falling to obscure his face. 

 

And he says something that strikes a distant terror in Steve’s heart. 

 

“So this is what this feels like,” as if he’s made someone else suffer through something similar. The man’s mouth is quirked in a wry, bitter smile when he faces them again, all of the hurt locked away deep inside where Steve can’t see it. 

 

“What’s your name?” he asks quietly and the man looks at him, eyes sharp and careful. 

 

“James. But you always called me Bucky,” Bucky. The name chimes like a bell in Steve’s head. Then he thinks about the way Bucky said it, _you always called me_ , and Steve suddenly wants to lay down for a year. Or forever, maybe. That feeling, like he’s impossibly old and has been fighting wars his entire life, is back, leaving him shaken. There had been a glimmer of hope in the man’s—Bucky’s— eyes when he said it but when Steve just nods, the light dims and fades away. 

 

“Did we know each other too?” Natasha asks into the ensuing silence and Bucky’s face goes a little soft when he glances at her. 

 

“Yeah, we did,” he says and that seems to be that. He won’t speak anymore, though his eyes are incredibly sad. All he’ll say is, 

 

“I need to find out what happened,” with such an edge of desperation Steve wouldn’t even think to deny him. But Natasha crosses her arms, face hard again. 

 

“You mean you don’t know?” she demands, though she eases a little when Steve reaches out to touch her arm. Bucky looks between them again, assessing. 

 

“I know some things but not…” he trails off, eyebrows knitting for a moment. They are silent for another long momentbefore he looks back at Steve, a determined tilt to his chin, “Tell me how long I was in cryo.” Steve responds with an uneasy shrug. 

 

“As far as we can tell, at least fifty years,” he says, softly, like he’s trying to pull a punch at the last minute. It doesn’t seem to help any because Bucky closes his eyes, pain written in the lines between his eyes and around his mouth. He doesn’t say anything but it looks like he is lost. His eyes are dry when he opens them again but the thin slash of his mouth suggests he’s probably closer to breaking down than he wants to be. Natasha takes pity on him. 

 

“Why don’t you rest and then we’ll get you something to eat. We can talk in the morning,” Bucky nods absently at her words, lying back down on the cot and turning his back to them. It is broad and strong and looks so very lonely. 

 

***

 

When he has a moment, Steve goes to his room and puts the golden faceplate into a drawer. It feels like lying an old friend to rest when he closes it and for a moment, grief is so thick in his throat, he can’t breathe. 

 

Grief for someone he doesn’t remember and helpless rage for not knowing who he can’t recall.

 

***

 

***

 

Somehow, despite the strangeness of recent events and their newly acquired guest, they manage to placate Maria’s fury at losing so many drones so quickly into a dull simmer. Steve goes out to repair the one that’s close by and they sign off for the night with promises to get to the rest in the morning. Maria is still angry but the video link goes dead at sunset, just as it always does. Steve breathes out a long breath, supporting himself on the control desk, feeling like he’s run for miles without taking a single breath of air. 

 

“We can’t keep this up for much longer,” he states and Natasha nods grimly. 

 

“I have a feeling we won’t have to,” Steve doesn’t need to ask her what she means; he has the same ominous feeling growing under his skin as well. 

 

“Was that Maria Hill?” asks a rough voice behind them and they both turn to find Bucky leaning weakly in the doorway, his face pale but set. 

 

“Yes,” Natasha says slowly, “or what is passing as her, anyway,” and the words send a shiver down Steve’s spine. Bucky is quiet, head bent and fingers white where his grips the doorway. Finally he looks up at them, looking a little sheepish. 

 

“I’m sorry, but cryo always leaves me hungry,” and to punctuate his statement, his stomach growls loudly. For the first time in what feels like forever, Steve feels his lips curling into a smile. They prepare dinner, something simple and warm for Bucky, and eat in uneasy silence for a while. Steve watches Bucky eat, helpless to pull his gaze away, taking in the way his hand trembles just a little when he lifts the spoon to his lips, the way his dark hair won’t stay behind his ears no matter how he tucks it away. How his metal hand is rock steady when he realizes Steve has noticed the shaking and he switches hands. 

 

They try to ask him more questions but his eyes remain steely and on his bowl of broth as he keeps repeating, “I need to find out what happened.” Finally exasperated, Steve abandons his own half-eaten supper to ask, 

 

“How will you do that?” Bucky looks at him for a moment, face still as stone. 

 

“I need to find what’s left of an Avenger’s hub,” he says flatly and it means nothing to Steve. And yet. He feels like it should mean something. He feels like it should mean everything. Natasha is leaning her chin on her hand, watching the exchange. 

 

“There’s nothing left, you know…of anything,” and though her words seem cold and brutal, her expression is not. Bucky remains still, watching them carefully. He looks back and forth between them, so many things in his pale eyes that he doesn’t give voice to and that Steve is surprised he can read him. Then he juts his chin out, something hard and unforgiving making his face go still like slate. 

 

“Fly me out tomorrow. I’ll find something,” he says and that seems to settle the matter. 

 

Even though Steve still isn’t sure what that means. Or that there will be anything left for Bucky to find. 

 

***

 

Steve doesn’t sleep at all that night because he keeps remembering how Bucky kept looking at him. Betrayed and confused and devastated. How his gaze kept darting between Steve and Natasha like that would provide him with some answers. And every time Steve catches him at it, he feels a sharp pang in his chest. He doesn’t know this man and while he can sympathize with his pain, it shouldn’t send an echoing ache through his own chest. 

 

Bucky seems more or less recovered in the morning, though the shadows under his eyes suggest that he didn’t sleep all that well either. Steve tells himself he’s not worried about Bucky. Why should he be worried? 

 

They set out before Control comes back online, racing across the sky like they can out pace time. Bucky glances at the sun’s position and tells them to fly south-east, his mouth becoming more and more pinched the more ground they cover. He stands between their chairs in the cockpit, metal hand leaving imprints of his fingers on Steve’s chair, face pale and eyes blazing. He gives them directions like he knows where he’s going but every time Steve glances at his face, there’s devastation there. Worse than the expression he wears when he looks at Steve and knows Steve doesn’t recognize him. It is a terrible kind of agony and Steve has to look away because he feels like his heart will break. 

 

Shapes of a broken city start to assemble themselves on the horizon just as the sun flares over the horizon, bright in the windshield. Bucky draws in a raw, hurt breath, like he’s trying very hard not to cry. Or like he’s been run through with something long and sharp. 

 

At the sound, Natasha suddenly leans forward, reaches under the dash and rips several wires free. They dangle uselessly, like bloodless veins and he feels queasy. 

 

“What did you do?” he breathes as the broken bridge and the tips of a few remaining towers draw closer and closer. He can see, too, Control hovering in the sky, a shining, watchful eye. But as he holds his breath, Maria never flickers to life on the video link. Natasha grins wildly at him, teeth flashing sharp. 

 

“I cut our feed,” she says, almost excited, “Well, I cut the video link. She’ll still know where we are but she can’t communicate with us,” Steve looks at her and thinks, wish we’d thought of that before. 

 

“They’ll send drones after us as soon as they figure out what happened,” he reminds her, reluctant to bust her little bubble of triumph. But her smile doesn’t get any less manic. She just waggles her eyebrows at him, green eyes bright, and responds, 

 

“We’ll deal with the drones when they come. You’re not turning into a coward on me now, are you?” she means it as a joke because, having been around him as long as she has, she knows how to goad him. But before he can answer in kind, Bucky snorts a dry laugh behind them. 

 

“Steve, a coward?” he murmurs and in his voice there is a trace of warmth and affection. Unexpectedly, Natasha joins him, laughing softly. Steve turns his head away, trying to hide a smile and a flush of embarrassment that heats his cheeks. They both seem to know he’s blushing anyway because after a moment, there’s another wave of laughter. 

 

It dies away quickly, though, because they are over the remains of the city, and the moment of levity is a lost moment of time. They soar past the jutting, shattered teeth of the bridge that always tugs at something in Steve’s heart. Bucky makes a soft sound of distress but when Steve glances over his shoulder at him, his eyes are narrowed and hard. Turning back around, he searches the 

landscape for a hint of anything beyond the broken tops of what were once glass and steel giants and sees nothing more than what he’s always seen. 

 

The reminder of humanity’s fall.

 

“There,” Bucky says suddenly, his finger pointing at the crooked tip of a building, black sand dunes licking up its sides until it is nearly swallowed by the earth. Steve glances at Natasha and catches her gaze, serious and heavy, but she takes the cruiser down to the base of what left of the building, landing with barely a jostle. 

 

Steve steps out of the cruiser first, despite Bucky’s obvious impatience, though he practically steps on the back of Steve’s boots in his rush to get out. He watches as Bucky looks around, eyes roving over the barren landscape. There’s an odd expression on his face, very like the agony that he had turned on Steve when he didn’t remember who Bucky was but there is something else present besides. 

 

He realizes it is resignation. 

 

Heart heavy, Steve steps up to Bucky’s shoulder and asks quietly, 

 

“Are you alright?” even though he knows that, no, Bucky is very much not alright. Bucky seems to be thinking the same thing because he shoots Steve a flat, incredulous look. 

 

“I seem to outlive everything,” is his reply, pain flashing quickly across his face. Steve reaches out a hand to clasp his shoulder. Perhaps to comfort him or, more selfishly, to comfort himself. But Bucky is already moving towards the jagged remains of the tower and Steve lets his hand fall back to his side, feeling strangely disappointed. He doesn’t know why, or where the impulse to touch came from and it sends a prickle of discomfort down his spine. He is getting very, very tired of not knowing things. 

 

The words must come out of his mouth because Natasha glances at him as she walks by, fire-arm drawn, and lifts an eyebrow at him.

 

“Join the club.” Steve laughs bitterly and puts his feet in the tracks Bucky and Nat left behind, following them up the gentle swell of sand and ash to where it presses against the side of the buried building. Together, they peer through the broken glass into the guts of the tower, though Steve really can’t see all that much. There’s twisted metal beams and cold gleaming floors but beyond that, it is hard to make out any real detail from the outside. 

 

Without hesitation, Bucky plants his metal arm on what’s left of the wall frame and launches himself into the building, landing inside gracefully with a soft crunch. Steve chokes on a shout of warning, instinct making him think of Scavs lurking in dark corners of an unknown place. But he catches himself with his teeth clenched on the inside of his cheek. There are no Scavs to worry about. The danger lurks above their heads. Honestly, he’s surprised there’s no drones barreling down on them. He glances over his shoulder at the pale sky, looking for tell-tale shadows but there’s nothing. Natasha must be thinking the same thing because she puts her hand on his arm and her eyes are earnest when she looks up at him. 

 

“You go with him. I’ll stay here and keep watch,” not for Scavs. Not anymore. Something grim and determined makes Steve’s back straighten and he nods at her. 

 

“Be careful. Shout if anything happens, I’ll hear you,” he says and follows Bucky into the building, letting the shadows swallow him. 

 

At first he can’t see Bucky, though he can make out the room better now that he’s standing in the middle of it. It was probably beautiful, once. Thick carpet on the floor and a huge couch and glass and chrome everywhere. It makes him think of the base under the mountain they dug Bucky out of. Except here, there is nothing left but ruin. The rug is buried under rubble from the roof above and there’s barely any recognizable furniture left. He can make out bits of marble from a long, collapsed countertop and glass tiles litter one corner of the room. But it is hard to pick out the pieces of luxury amid the chaos. 

 

Finally he hears a rasp of a boot scraping glass across the floor and he follows it to find Bucky on the other side of a fallen beam, frowning at a cracked glass panel set into what’s left of the wall. 

 

“You have a flashlight?” he asks, voice rough. Steve pulls the flashlight off his belt and hands it to Bucky, who flicks it on with a flash of bright light in Steve’s eyes before pointing it at the wall. His frown grows more pronounced as he studies the cracks and how the lower half of the wall is completely missing, propped up on another support beam that crashed through the wall from the other side. “Well, fuck,” Bucky mutters and Steve is inclined to agree, though he has no idea what Bucky is actually looking for. 

 

Immediately, Bucky presses forward, pushing aside debris when he needs to, before he finds a door half-hidden by a large piece of furniture that lists dangerously to the side. He yanks it open to reveal a staircase, eerie with just the light of the flashlight to illuminate it. The stairs are in no better shape than the room they were just in and Steve catches Bucky’s elbow without thought when he starts down them. 

 

“The rest of the building is probably completely buried,” he warns, voice echoing down the stairwell, “It’s liable to crash down on our heads if we keep moving stuff around. If you tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I can help,” he says the last part almost gently and he gets a hard glare for it as well as Bucky shaking his hand off angrily. But after clenching his jaw on what are undoubtedly sharp words, he finally bows his head. 

 

“A way to access this building’s information hub. Or,” and he snorts mirthlessly, “what is left of it.” Steve stares at him, wondering if he’s serious. 

 

“How are you going to do that?” he asks, more out of curiosity than exasperation, “There’s been no power for decades. The source is surely dead. You won’t be able to get any information out of it.” Bucky continues to stand there, jaw hard and stubborn, eyes shadowed as the flashlight is pointed down the stairwell for the moment. Steve brightens at a sudden thought, “I can take you back to the mountain base where we found you. There still seemed to be some power working there.”

 

“I can’t go back there!” Bucky explodes, making Steve lose his grip on Bucky’s arm and he takes a step back, “I can’t go back to that place. I can’t. _You_ were the one who—” he cuts himself off, chest heaving and eyes wild, when he catches sight of whatever must be on Steve’s face. He takes a deep breath through his nose, closing his eyes for a moment and when he opens them, his expression is almost remorseful, “I’m sorry. None of this is your fault. But if I’m going to find anything, it’ll be here. This is where all the main drives were kept, anyway. And knowing T—knowing the person who designed this building, there will be a dormant power source,” his eyes shone for a moment and he adds, “No possibility unthought of.” The way he says it sounds practically fond. 

 

Steve almost smiles and has no idea why he should. 

 

They decide to let Steve make his way down first because he has the fire-arm, tip-toeing down the metal stairs like they’ll give way any moment. One of them almost does, as it’s hanging on one side by a single support. They carefully maneuver around it and make it to the next floor, which they find as devastated as the last. Still, they sweep the floor, Steve to the right, Bucky to the left, and come up with nothing. 

 

They continue downwards like that for several floors, foregoing speech in favor of pointed looks, a jerk of the head, or hand signals. And Steve knows he’s done this before with this man. They’ve worked like this many times, a well-oiled machine, efficient and silent. By the time he realizes it, they are four stories down and when he glances at Bucky, he receives a long, assessing look in return. 

 

They are finally brought to a screeching halt in the middle of the stairwell, where the earth has punched through the outer shell of the building, spilling across the stairs and making it impossible to get around. They stare at it for a moment, hopelessly, before Bucky turns the flashlight down at the next flight. Steve recoils. 

 

“No,” he says, voice sounding strangely muffled here, like the weight of the earth above is muffling the sound. Bucky just looks at him flatly, “No,” Steve says again, “The gap across is too big and there’s barely enough room to fit. You won’t get a good angle—!” But Bucky is already up on the railing, head brushing the edge of the stairwell above them even in his crouch and Steve’s heart leaps in his throat. Bucky looks over his shoulder and says darkly, 

 

“Watch me,” and leaps into open space. At first, Steve is sure Bucky won’t make it. The opening in the middle of the circling stairwell is wide, wider than it needs to be, and he watches with his heart in his throat and his hands gripping the metal railing Bucky launched himself from. But he makes it with a clang, even clearing the other railing to teeter on the steps for a minute. Steve deflates, wincing when Bucky aims the flashlight in his face again. 

 

“Reckless,” Steve mutters, “reckless and stupid, you insane motherfucker,” and Bucky’s laugh fills the space. It’s a lovely sound, even if it is soft and short. He looks a bit mad when he lowers the flashlight and Steve can just make out his features. 

 

“Used to be your job,” he states, voice lighter than Steve has yet to hear it. Then he waves at Steve, “Come on, then,” and moves a few steps down to make room for Steve. He climbs onto the railing reluctantly but he needn't have worried. It is almost as if his body already knows what to do and he lands on the stairs, though more awkwardly than Bucky’s landing had been. Bucky isn’t smiling anymore when Steve joins him but he looks…calmer almost. 

 

He doesn’t say ‘I told you so’ but for some reason, there’s an echo of his voice saying it in Steve’s head. 

 

“Come on,” Bucky says again and they make it down the rest of the flight to the next door with no more trouble. They find, however, that only a few steps below the landing they stand on is filled in with dirt, completely blocking the rest of the way down. Bucky stares at it in dismay, then looks at the door they are about to enter. 

 

“It has to be in here,” he growls and practically punches the door open with his metal fist. Steve stares at the huge indent in the door as he follows Bucky onto the next floor. 

 

Thankfully, Bucky does find what he’s looking for there. 

 

This floor is made up of a long hallway that was once clearly made of glass and has long since merged with the huge room behind it. Here there are many places where the earth has tried to reclaim the building, seeping over the floors and filling many gaps. But in the middle of the room is a console, a ring of dark screens and a huge column jutting out of the floor. Several screens are hanging crookedly from the ceiling and two have fallen already. Half of the console is missing, crushed under a heavy steel beam but Bucky makes a beeline towards it, already digging in his pocket for something as he walks. 

 

Steve follows at a more sedate pace, the place, shattered though it is, tugging at a half-formed memory. When he looks back at Bucky, he’s kneeling down behind the console and fitting a small drive into the only port that seems to be left. 

 

“Where did you get that?” Steve asks and Bucky gives him a grim look in return. 

 

“Swiped it from your ridiculous tower in the sky,” to which Steve rolls his eyes. 

 

“Not my tower,” he grumbles under his breath but Bucky must hear him anyway because he looks at Steve, eyes almost amused. Steve joins him in sitting on his haunches in front of the port and they wait, the only sound their soft breaths. When many moments have passed and Steve is beginning to think Bucky was wrong after all, the console in front of them makes a soft, whirring sound and a thready voice says, 

 

“Unauthorized access. Confirm authorized security voice command.” Steve stares at it. The voice is the same as the one back in the mountain base, the one that had known Steve and Natasha. Bucky doesn’t seem too surprised, though. 

 

“James Buchanan Barns, three, one, five, eight, eight, two. Alias, the Winter Soldier,” he says, voice steady even though his full name had punched something inside Steve. Something that seems to crack and let in a trickle of light in his mind, like a draft under an old door that no longer sits straight in its frame and he hears _“hey, I’m James Barns, but you can call me Bucky. Why were you getting your ass kicked by the Greenly boys anyway?”_ The voice in his head is a kid’s voice but the words are spoken with the confidence of a youth learning the world won’t punish him for cussing. Steve is so caught up in it, he barely hears the thin, tinny voice of the computer say, 

 

“Authorization granted. Welcome back, Sargent Barns,” blinking, Steve comes back to himself and stares at the man next to him, completely bewildered. The voice is there but he can’t match it to the Bucky next to him, serious and hard. 

 

“Glad your still functional, Friday,” Bucky says softly and there’s a soft, mechanic whirr from inside the console. There’s a pause and the drive in the port flashes with a bright, gold light. 

 

“Running on…final backup support. At five percent capacity. I’m afraid I don’t have much time,” the last part is said almost wryly, like the computer cares about that kind of thing and Bucky looks wistful for a moment. 

 

“That’s alright. I was wondering if you can give me any kind of feed from August fifth, twenty-twenty five until the recordings cut out,” he says calmly, though his knee bounces as if he’s nervous. Or anxious. Steve frowns at it because he’s never seen Bucky do that before. He’s always been really good at sitting still, especially in high-stress situations. And then he sits back on his heels in shock because he doesn’t know why he thought that. Bucky looks at him strangely but doesn’t say anything. 

 

“Compiling,” the voice says, sounding strained and they watch as the little light on the drive blinks and whirrs and blinks some more. It seems to take forever, and Steve wonders how many recordings the computer can even have. But finally, the blinking stops and the voice says, “Downloaded. Will…that be all, Sargent Barns?” and the voice sounds even more far away and strained now. 

 

“Yes, thank you, Friday,” Bucky’s voice is almost kind as he pulls the drive out of the port and pockets it. The computer gives a wheezing hum. 

 

“I’m afraid that is…all the power…left—” she cuts out with a sharp buzz before coming back to say, “Godspeed, James. Goodbye,” and the whole thing goes blank and dead. Just as it had been when they walked in. Steve doesn’t know why but a bitter swell of sadness curl s like sick  in his gut. Bucky presses metal fingers to the console, the expression on his face as sad as Steve feels. 

 

“Goodbye, Friday,” he whispers before lurching to his feet. Steve follows suit and stares at the side of Bucky’s face as he stands there, looking unbearably sad. Finally, he sighs and turns away, “Lets go back,” he says and as he turns back towards the stairs, his eye catches on something shining and metal. Steve makes a noise of surprise and Bucky turns with a lifted eyebrow. 

 

But Steve doesn’t say anything. He’d seen what the metal was. 

 

More golden faceplates with the strange, slitted eyes. Only these are attached to whole suits made of metal, covered in dull, peeling red and gold paint. The suits were in various states of disrepair, many barely more than a leg or arm or chest plate here and there. It makes him feel sick again and he just looks at Bucky with a shake of his head. 

 

“Nothing. I’ll follow you,” he says and if his voice is rough and strained, Bucky doesn’t remark on it. They troop back out, the ghost of the desolate building that he’d clearly once known pressing on his shoulders. He doesn’t realize he’s practically stepping on Bucky’s heels until he nearly crashes into him on the stairwell. Bucky is pointing the beam of the flashlight at the place they’d jumped down from earlier and he curses softly. Steve opens his mouth, though he has no idea what he’s about to say, when Bucky turns to him, pointing a finger at him with narrowed eyes. 

 

“Not a fucking word,” he growls then hands Steve the flashlight, “Point it up there,” he commands and once again climbs up onto the railing. Steve just sighs and tries very hard to keep his heart from crashing down into his stomach when Bucky springs across the gap and nearly doesn’t grasp the railing of the stairwell above them. He dangles there for a moment before pulling himself up with a couple of grunts. 

 

“Jesus,” Steve says harshly, throwing Bucky the flashlight when he calls down for it. He’s left standing in the dark, staring at the railing he’s supposed to jump to that Bucky thoughtfully illuminates. He forces himself not to look down into the darkness as he teeters on the thin metal pipe. 

 

He thinks, after he makes the jump, that he’s going to miss. That he hasn’t jumped far enough. He manages to get one hand around a thin spindle but his other slides away before he can grasp it and he hangs for a breathless, terrifying time, unable to stop his eyes from looking down. Down past his feet into the abyss, wondering if the earth would be there to catch him or if it funneled down to the bottom, blocking only the stairs. Then a metal hand grasps his wrists and he’s painfully hauled over the railing. 

 

They land in a heap on the stairs, both breathing hard and staring at each other with wide eyes.

 

“What the fuck was that?” Bucky nearly shouts and he thinks he would see terror in his eyes but it seems, in the scuffle, they’ve lost the flashlight over the side. The darkness is heavy and terrible and Steve finds he’s curled his free hand into Bucky’s jacket, suddenly afraid to let go. Under his hips, Bucky’s stomach expands and contracts with his breaths and his flesh hand is tight on Steve’s shoulder. Like he too is afraid Steve is going to slip through his fingers. His breath washes over the back of Steve’s neck and he’s so real, so solid under Steve. Familiar in a way that makes his stomach swoop with sudden longing.

 

Steve opens his mouth, maybe to ask in the sudden darkness if they had met in an alley a long time ago while Steve was bleeding from his nose and Bucky from his fists. But he doesn’t get the chance because he hears, from so high above them it almost doesn’t seem real, someone shouting. 

 

“Shit,” Bucky says shortly at the same moment Steve realizes what it is. 

 

“Nat!” he gasps and they haul each other to their feet, hands touching more than they probably need to, using the darkness like an excuse. They go as fast as they dare, Bucky in front counting the stairs so they don’t fall through the damaged ones and when they make it to the floor they entered through, the dim flare of daylight almost makes Steve gasp in relief. Natasha is silhouetted in the broken window, her red hair flowing around her head like a banner. Her face is grim when they call up to her. 

 

“Better hurry,” she says, “we’re about to have company,” and Steve can hear them in the distance, the high, whining sound the drones make as they hurtle full-speed through the air. He and Bucky help each other scramble up and out of the building and by the time they are standing beside Natasha, three drones hover in front of them, watching, waiting. 

 

“Techs Roger and Romanoff. Confirm,” Natasha says, voice raised over the gentle hum of wind as it blows through the remains of the tower. One drone breaks off, it’s guns out and aimed at Bucky. Steve steps smoothly in front of him, nearly pressing his back to Bucky’s chest and lifts his chin. 

 

“This is the survivor. The one we reported yesterday,” Steve grits out, voice carrying over the flat landscape, ringing in the open spaces of the tower, “He is to remain unharmed.” The drone stares, the weight of its one eyed gaze heavy and Steve thinks that if machines could hate, these would despise all three of them with a cold, unstoppable passion. Steve feels a warm hand on the small of his back, feels Bucky behind him and he lifts his chin and stares the drone down. 

 

Something must finally work because it gives a low, grinding chime and falls back into formation with the other two. They hang there for a few more minutes, expectant, until Natasha says sharply, 

 

“We thought we detected a signal here but we were wrong. We’ll find and repair the other six drones by the end of the day.” They’ve never had to give reports to the drones before and Steve gets a chill down his spine when they chime again in unison before lifting up high over the tower and speeding off in three different directions. 

 

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Bucky breathes, stepping out from behind Steve. His face is pale, “Those things are fucking scary.” Steve emphatically agrees. 

 

“How long do we have until Shield figures out we have no intentions of fixing those drones?” he asks because he has to say something or he might explode from unused adrenaline burning in his veins. Natasha shrugs. 

 

“Three hours, tops. I can see if I can make it so they can trace the cruiser but it was made by Control. I’m sure it’s—”

 

“No, it wasn’t,” Bucky interrupts. They swing around to stare at him, Steve surprised and Natasha annoyed. Bucky looks between them, “Wait, really, you don’t know?” 

 

“Don’t know what?” Natasha’s voice is hard and unforgiving but Bucky just lifts his dark eyebrows at her. 

 

“That thing you fly around in wasn’t made by Control. Or, that thing in the sky you call Control,” he states and for once he seems almost delighted, “That’s Stark tech, through and through. You could probably drop a nuke on that thing and it’d survive,” he says it like it should mean something but when Steve and Natasha just continue to look blankly at him, he just throws his arms out, “You’ll see. I have the footage. I can show you now.”

 

“We’ll have to go back to the tower for that,” Steve responds softly, regretfully. The thought of going back there makes him swallow a burst of panic. 

 

“Fine,” Natasha snaps, already striding back to the cruiser, “We don’t have time for this,” Steve and Bucky follow her but there’s a glimmer of hope in Bucky’s steely eyes that wasn’t there before and it’s almost infectious. 

 

***

 

They’ve barely lifted off when Bucky sucks in a deep breath and asks if they could take a quick stop at the broken bridge jutting out of the blackened earth. He gets a baleful look from Natasha but he gives her a tight smile. 

 

“It’s important, I promise. We’ll be quick,” he says and she grudgingly lands the cruiser beside it. She gives them ten minutes before she says she’s coming to retrieve them. Confused, Steve lets himself be led out of the cruiser and onto the sandy ash. Their boots bite deep into it as they walk and the dry, washed-out sunlight gleams off of Bucky’s long hair. There’s no easy way up to the remains of the bridge and they end up leaping up fallen struts and using gaping holes in the concrete as handholds. 

 

When they get the to top where there was once a roadway and is now nothing more than crumbling asphalt and rusting steel beams, Bucky turns away, looking out over the burnt land. 

 

“Why did you bring me here?” Steve asks after the silence drags on too long. He too is looking out over the landscape and he thinks this was in a dream once. Or maybe twice. A bridge like this, water running slow and dark underneath, a city alive all around him. 

 

Around them. 

 

He was not alone in the dream. 

 

“Can’t you remember, Steve?” Bucky’s voice asks and it sounds broken, as broken as the bridge upon which they stand, “Don’t you remember this place?” he glances over his shoulder at Steve and his lovely blue eyes are bright with emotion. Steve looks out and tries. He tries to remember. 

 

“Bucky, I don’t…” Bucky whips around, steps up to him, expression suddenly desperate. 

 

“I don’t know what happened,” he starts and his voice is sharp, “I don’t know why you don’t remember me or this place or…anything but I can take a good guess. It happened to me too, you know? They went into my head and scooped me out and when you found me again, I couldn’t grasp the pain I was inflicting on you just by not remembering but…” he takes a harsh, shuddering breath, “but this is worse than anything I have ever…” Bucky ducks his head, hair hiding his face. Hiding the way Steve knows it’s twisted up, lined with agony. 

 

He hates not knowing why he knows things. 

 

When Bucky looks up at him, his eyes are hard again, “You brought me here, you know. The first time in nineteen thirty eight, when you just turned twenty. The second time was in twenty seventeen and we’d both forgotten how old we were. And you held out your hand because you never fucking cared what people thought of you and you said, I’m with you—”

 

“Til’ the end of the line,” Steve finishes and Bucky looks at him, eyes full of something bright that Steve is terrified to name. 

 

“There you are,” Bucky says because Steve does remember. 

 

He remembers everything. 

 

It comes back to him like an avalanche, like a thunderclap. There’s suddenly noise in his head, Bucky’s voice over more than a century, full of love, of exasperation, of terror, of anger. He remembers Peggy, Howard, and that he hasn’t been big and strong and healthy his whole life. He remembers dying, remembers drowning and freezing and being woken back up in a time he doesn’t recognize with none of the people he’d loved still alive. He remembers finding a new family, remembers finding Bucky again and realizes that he’s lived through the pain of Bucky not knowing him too, that Bucky was right. It’s the worst thing in the world, even worse than dying. Even worse than surviving. 

 

He doesn’t remember what happened before Shield’s Control (no, not Shield, he remembers the real Shield), doesn’t remember how the world broke. But he remembers everything else.

 

When he refocuses, feeling dizzy, there’s hands on either side of his face, one warm and soft, the other cool and gentle and he loves them both because that’s how he knows it’s Bucky. 

 

“Buck,” he breathes and closes his eyes when Bucky tilts their foreheads together, when he tastes Bucky’s breath on his lips. It hits him, all at once, that he’d been missing Bucky for fifty years and he had no idea. He curls his own hands into Bucky’s hair and around the back of his neck, holding him there, breathing him in, “Buck,” he says again because he can’t help it. Something hot and wet runs down his cheek but he doesn’t care. Bucky holds him and shakes and cries too. 

 

“Yeah, Steve,” he croaks and they meet in the middle, chasing the mingling heat of their breaths, kissing like it’s been fifty years, two hundred, a thousand. Bucky’s lips are soft and a little chapped from cryo, but the inside of his mouth when he parts his lips is heaven. Hot and wet and Steve chases the taste of him. Licks the inside of his lips, of his teeth, moans when their tongues slide together. When they part, it is sweet and breathless and Steve looks into his eyes, grey and blue and bright, and loves him fiercely. 

 

“I remember you,” he murmurs, running his fingers over Bucky’s cheek, through his hair, touching the curving edge of his soft smile. The same smile that haunted him in his dreams. Even when everything else was taken from him, Bucky was still there, like he existed in Steve’s very genetic makeup. Now Bucky hugs him, throws his arms around Steve’s shoulders and they hold each other close, feeling each other breathe. Steve buries his nose under Bucky’s ear, his hair tickling Steve’s cheek, and there is a hint of something familiar there. A hint of home. 

 

Natasha calls them all too soon and they laugh a little sheepishly as they wipe tears from each other’s cheeks and savor a few more stolen kisses before heading back down. Something is soaring in Steve’s chest as he and Bucky walk back over the burnt earth to the cruiser where Natasha is waiting for them with crossed arms and a tiny smile. Like she can feel their joy too. He sees her and another version of her imprints itself over her real form for a moment, deadly always, hair all different lengths and colors, and one of the best friends he’s ever had. 

 

“Talk went well, did it?” she asks, undoubtedly trying to sound stern but just coming across amused. He hugs her, lifts her off the ground, because despite everything, she’s still the same. He earns himself a knee to his ribs but he’s still smiling when he puts her down. She looks disgruntled but pleased when she steps away from him. 

 

“Well enough,” Bucky said quietly and it’s relief that Steve sees in his eyes, and affection. Natasha is watching Steve, though, eyes missing nothing. 

 

“You remember,” she states and he nods. Her face is still, like the pond at their little house sometimes gets when their’s no wind. She nods back, “Took you long enough,” and her full lips curl into his favorite crooked smile. Bucky looks at her, surprised but Steve isn’t. 

 

“You too?” Bucky asks just as Steve murmurs, “When?” Natasha’s face is almost soft when she looks at him. 

 

“When we went to the mountain pass. It started then. But,” she cuts them off, though Steve isn’t sure what he was going to say, “We’re running out of time. Lets go see what that footage is and then we can plan our next move,” and she’s all practicality again, toeing them back in line. Steve is suddenly fiercely glad she was the one who was with him all this time. And then he has a sudden, crashing thought that brings him to a screeching halt on the cruiser’s ramp. Nat and Bucky walk a couple steps before they realize and turn to him. 

 

“What is it?” Natasha asks, alarmed at what she sees on Steve’s face. He must be a sight because he feels like he’s going to break apart. 

 

“Sam,” he croaks, the understanding washing over him in a burning tide of horror, shame, and sheer delight. Bucky blinks at him, confused but Natasha’s face soften again, like she felt the exact same thing when she realized what he does now. 

 

“What about Sam?” Bucky asks, soft, like he’s expecting bad news but it’s not at all. Steve laughs, the sound bursting out of him and it ripples over the stark landscape, out of place and almost obscene. He can’t help it. Of course Sam was still alive. Of course he is, fighting even now, as old as he is. Steve looks at Bucky and his face feels like it will crack under the strain of his grin. 

 

“Sam’s alive, Buck,” he says and watches the flicker of emotions flare over his face. Then they are all grinning at each other like morons, feeling alive and young again for a short moment. 

 

“Come on,” Natasha says, “I’m sure Sam would love to see Bucky again,” which makes Bucky practically cackle and Steve remembers (remembers!!) how Sam and Bucky bickered like two cats in an alleyway but fought for each other fiercely when they needed to. Steve takes one last glance in the sky, looking up at the thing that calls itself Control, and his smiles becomes sharp as he follows Bucky and Natasha into the cruiser. 

 

Let them come, he thinks. We’ll be ready this time. 

 

***

 

They don’t have three hours. 

 

They don’t even get one. 

 

The race back to the tower is done in silence, the only sound is that of the engines humming in the background. He knows Natasha is pushing the cruiser, leaving behind a tail of dust but there’s a swooping pit in his stomach that tells him it won’t be enough. They make it back just fine, no more drones falling from the sky after them and Control remaining radio silent. Steve suspects they have a way to connect with the cruiser even after Nat yanked out the feed to the video link but perhaps he is wrong. He wants to be wrong. Glancing up at the sky through the windshield, Steve looks at the triangular station, squatting like a baleful, jealous god in its place above the horizon. For the first time, he feels a shiver of fear just seeing it there. 

 

He glances at Bucky, his head feeling crammed full of so many lives, and thinks, he would fight for Bucky. He would bring all of Shield crashing down if he had to, to keep Bucky safe. 

 

The landing platform at the tower is empty as always, waiting for them and he hates the horrible feeling he has in his gut. This whole thing feels wrong. 

 

“We shouldn’t have come back here,” he says slowly, earning two identical looks of concern. Natasha has already landed and though her face is pale, it is also set, jaw hard and eyes steely. 

 

“Lets go find out what’s on that drive,” she returns and he doesn’t argue. Just follows her off the cruiser with Bucky on his heels. But the feeling doesn’t go away. It screams at him as they walk towards the doors, pounding in his chest like a runaway heartbeat. The glass doors slide open for Natasha when she touches the panel beside the door but they snap shut before Steve can follow her in. 

 

“No!” he shouts, slamming his fists against the glass but it’s no use. He knows the glass won’t break by his own hand. Natasha looks back at him, touching her fingers to the glass and the expression of resignation in her eyes breaks his heart, “Natasha, can you get the doors open?” he asks uselessly, even as she tries the control panel. It’s no use. The doors stay closed.

 

“Hello, Steve, Natasha,” Maria’s voice crackles through the coms link in the tower and it is like a bucket of ice water over his head, “How are you all doing this evening?” Steve grits his teeth and slams a fist against the glass again. 

 

“Let her go,” he snarls, watching Natasha’s eyes, seeing the fear in them. He won’t look away. 

 

“Now, Steve, is that any way to talk to me? I’m just trying to help you out, here. Make your job easier,” Maria says and her tinny, robotic voice sound even colder than usual. Bucky is at his shoulder, hand on Steve’s wrist but he can’t look away from Natasha. 

 

“What do you mean?” he croaks, pressing his forehead to the glass. But he needn’t have asked. Because he sees it even as he speaks, the drone that he’d been working to fix down in the lab. It needed parts to be functional again, parts that Control kept promising to send down to them and never did. He sees it float out from behind a curtain near the stairs, across the room from Natasha but entirely too close. And he sees it for what it is. Control’s security measure. Perhaps for just this instance. 

 

“I’ve seen the survivor, Steve. I see how you are together,” Maria’s voice says and Steve remembers, in that moment, the real Maria Hill. He feels sick with helpless rage, “You make a much more effective team.” Inside the drone makes its low, grating warning sound and Natasha whips around as it turns its guns on her. 

 

“No, please!” Steve cries, pounding on the glass some more, “We are still an effective team! The best!” but to no avail. Maria just says,

 

“It’s better this way, Steve,” and the drone approaches Natasha, takes aim. Natasha turns back around so she and Steve could look at each other again, and he takes her in, the most amazing woman he has ever known and there’s a gunshot. Steve jerks like he’s been shot but it takes him a moment to realize it hadn’t been the drone to take the shot. 

 

Bucky stands on the balcony around the corner of the tower, Steve’s firearm in his hand. It is pointed at the drone, that is now just a sparking, dead heap of metal on the ground. His hair curls over his face, hard and unforgiving, and Steve lets out a breath that is more a sob than anything else. He hadn’t even realized Bucky was no longer at his side. Bucky looks at him from the other side of the balcony, lowering the firearm. 

 

“Better run!” he calls and he’s right. They can’t be here when more drones show up. They’ll be sitting ducks. Natasha runs to the gaping hole in the glass from the gunshot and she and Bucky race towards the cruiser without a second’s hesitation. Steve follows them on shaky legs and when they are all inside, he catches Nat in a hard hug, perhaps harder than was entirely comfortable. But she doesn’t complain. She hugs him back just as hard before letting him go, her face grim. 

 

“Can you get us to Sam?” he asks and she quirks an eyebrow at him, like she wants to tell him off for being gentle. But she nods and goes to the controls, all of her movements graceful and concise. He turns to Bucky as the cruiser takes off and dashes away from the tower, whispers, “Thank you,” and gets a long, lingering look in return. Then Bucky’s lips quirk upwards into a crooked smile. 

 

“I just wanted that thing to shut up,” he says wryly and Steve loves him fiercely when Natasha laughs softly from the pilot’s seat. Maria had been right about one thing. Bucky and Steve do make an effective team; they always had. He remembers the war, remembers after it, the way they fought together. 

 

They’ll do it again, too and Control will find out just how effective they are. 

 

***

 

“Here they come,” Natasha says what feels like only moments later. They’ve made it far from the tower but not far enough, apparently. The cruiser soars over blackened rolling hills at full speed but sure enough, when Steve looks, there’s a formation of four drones quickly catching up to them. Natasha looks grim, “Better buckle up, boys,” she says and they hastily comply. Just in time for her to roll the cruiser and dart north, making for high, shattered dunes of earth. 

 

And where a great storm is brewing on the horizon, lighting dancing and spitting among the dark clouds. 

 

“Up there, Natasha,” Steve instructs quietly, pointing to the roiling clouds. She gives him barely a smile of acknowledgement but punches the controls forward, the cruiser flying towards the storm. Behind them, Steve watches as the drones move in, the constant howl of their engines just at the edge of his hearing. Bucky must be watching them too because he pipes up, 

 

“Watch your eight,” and Natasha swerves just in time to avoid losing one of their engines as the drones open fire. They’re close enough now that their automated targeting system will have locked onto the cruiser. Natasha tries to outpace them, making her movements sharp and erratic. And then they hit the wall of the storm, hail and rain slamming against the windshield and Steve holds his breath. 

 

Looks out the back of the cruiser. 

 

There’s a beat or two as the storm rumbles around them, the drones hot on their trail. Then a fork of lightning coils around all four of them, the crack so loud and the flash so bright Steve is momentarily stunned. When he looks again, after blinking the spots from his eyes, the drones are gone, falling to the earth, blank and lifeless. 

 

“Get us to the canyons before they come back online,” he says shortly and this time Natasha responds with a short nod and another swift change in direction. 

 

They can outrun the drones in the canyons if they need to. 

 

“Those fuckers can come back after a strike like that?” Bucky asks, and Steve twists to meet his eyes, make sure he’s still there. Bucky looks very real and very alive and Steve doesn’t know how he could have forgotten him. Then he thinks, no, he’d forgotten himself but not Bucky. Bucky had lived on in Steve’s dreams, real in ways Steve has not been for a long time.

 

“Most of the time, lightning doesn’t affect them but there have been a couple that were taken down permanently. I’m not about to take that chance. Not now,” Not after just finding Bucky again. Not after he and Nat have broken free of the spell the thing in the sky had used to hold them in thrall. 

 

Sure enough, as they depart from the shelter of the storm and make a break over the jagged land to the northwest and the start of the canyons, he catches a glint of sunlight on wet steel and he curses softly. If four lifeless drones could harbor any kind of human emotion, the four that snarled after them are angry. Bucky breathes a curse behind them but Nat has brought them to the first furrow the canyons and doesn’t hesitate to drop them in, racing along the twisting corridors with a grace and ferocity he has rarely seen from her. 

 

The drones are on them, though, shooting as they weave in and through the rocky crevices. 

 

“Buck, can you get on the controls?” Steve points to the turret at the back of the cruiser, the one he usually occupieswhen they need to fight their way out of a situation. But Bucky is a better shot than Steve will ever hope to be. He gets a loaded look in return and a fierce, curling smile. 

 

“Sure thing, pal,” and makes it to the turret before Natasha rolls the cruiser under a jut of rock. Three drones avoid it at the last second but the last doesn’t. It slams into the stone and sets off an explosion that rocks the canyon around them. Steve watches the flare of light and the blast of rock and says, 

 

“One down!” Bucky laughs a little wildly as he starts to lay down covering fire. Even Natasha smiles grimly as she catapults them around a tight bend then twists to avoid getting crushed in a narrow section. 

 

“Don’t you dare start counting, Rogers,” she warns but he thinks she’s teasing. Then she’s cursing as the drones, as one, dip under them and slam them from below, making the whole cruiser jerk, “We’ll see about that,” she hisses and jerks back on the controls. bringing the cruiser to a screeching halt. Steve winces. He’s probably going to bruise from the seatbelt at this point and he doesn’t bruise easily. Or at all.

 

The drones go screeching by, unprepared for their sudden halt and now they are in pursuit, hugging canyon walls in order to stay close. They get one good shot, Bucky hitting the drone closest to the cruiser square in the vulnerable part of the impenetrable outer shell and it falls from the sky like all of it’s strings have been cut. It’s an excellent shot and Steve opens his mouth to continue his countdown despite Nat’s friendly warning but the drones are quick to reverse their own guns, peppering them with gunfire that cracks against the hull and he doesn’t get the chance to say anything at all. 

 

Natasha, taking advantage of the fact that the drones are in front of them, sees a slim opening in the canyon walls and darts down a different fork, taking them momentarily away from the drones. But Steve knows better. 

 

“Watch your six, Buck. They’ll be coming around,” and he’s partially right. A drone comes charging around the corner after them, furious and implacable. Bucky immediately chases it with more covering fire but all of the vulnerable places on the drones are at the back and now it’s caught onto their game, moving back and forth like Natasha to avoid the gunfire. 

 

“Where’s the other one,” Steve whispers to himself, peering around, front, back, and sides because it’s still out there and he doesn’t like that he can’t see it. There are long, tense moments as they try to out-fly and out-gun the third drone to no avail. It dodges and shoots and slams into them, side, side, back, side. The last one knocks them into stone and someone grunts at the rough jostle. But perhaps Bucky was right and the cruiser can take more of a beating than they realized. 

 

The third drone is felled because the fourth and last shows up in front of them racing at them head-on. One behind and one ahead, with them caught in their crossfire. Steve glances at Natasha and she spares a second to look at him and he knows they are on the same page. He checks both sides, waits until the last moment and barks, 

 

“Now,” and the cruiser plummets a couple dozen feet, nearly slamming into the rushing river that lives at the bottom of the canyon just as the drones above their heads collide. It’s a spectacular display, the explosion raining twisted chunks of metal and rock to the canyon floor. They watch for a moment as the flare of flames fade quickly to black, sooty smoke and then Natasha is taking them smoothly away, following along the curving path of the canyon. The three of them are silent for long moments before Steve lets out a whoosh of breath and says, 

 

“That was some excellent flying.” Natasha doesn’t beam at him but she’s pleased, her eyes going a little soft and her grip on the controls easing. Steve turns to Bucky who is back in his seat and looking none the worse for wear, “Good shooting, Buck,” he adds and gets a slow, pleased smile in response that makes his insides feel warm and melty. He has to make himself look away before he embarrasses himself but the look Natasha shoots his way tells him he doesn’t quite manage it. 

 

The small victory, though barely a drop in the barrel, makes him feel lighter than he’s felt in fifty years.

 

***

 

The underground camp Sam runs is hard to find, even when they know where it is. 

Natasha takes them out of the canyons and into the mountains beyond, flying low over their shining lake and little cabin that looks like nothing more than a neat pile of sticks. He hadn’t realized how close it was to where Sam’s people had hidden themselves but it is barely moments before they are landing in the blackened field that has their own footprints in the sand from only days ago. Steve stares at the tracks as they exit the cruiser, surprised it’s been such a short amount of time. It feels like it’s been years since they walked away from Sam’s base, heads reeling and their memories still hidden by lies and manipulation. 

 

Steve steps out first, with Natasha to his right and Bucky behind him and they are greeted almost immediately by almost twenty armed guards, everyone decked out in their strange, sensor-scrambling garb and pointing heavy rifles at them. 

 

“Quite the welcoming committee,” Bucky remarks dryly from behind him. Steve snorts but puts his hands up. Natasha and Bucky follow suit. 

 

“I’m here to listen to your offer,” he says clearly and his voice echoes around the rocky walls that encircle the dry, dead field. Or, no, not dead. He can see, around the rim, where the rocks meet the sooty soil. Pale, green shoots of growing things have started to peek up from the ground. 

 

“We’ve offered you nothing,” snarls someone from behind their helmet, the words almost too garbled to make out. He knows at once it must be General Carter and he wonders if the name has any connection back to Peggy. He hopes so. Undeterred, he just smiles. 

 

“I mean what you will offer me to help take out that thing in the sky,” he responds and it seems, in that moment, the whole world holds its breath. Then, one by one, starting with Carter, the rifles lower until they stand outside a ring of people who look more like curious, albeit dangerous, birds. Then the General pulls her helmet off and looks at him with piercing eyes.

 

“Have you found your answers, then?” she asks and he lifts one shoulder. 

 

“Not all of them but we’re getting there,” he says calmly, truthfully. She looks between the three of them, face hard but whatever she sees must be good enough because she gives a sharp signal with her free hand and a moment later, the heavy steel doors on the other side of the field begin to slide open, rumbling low and sharp in the dry air. They follow her in, flanked by the rest of her soldiers and there, standing just beyond the shadows of the door, is Sam. 

 

Steve can see it now, the shape of his dark eyes, his lips, the way he stands. It’s the same Sam he used to know and yet he can see the hard, bitter old man too, the one that kidnapped him and Natasha and whose eyes have seen too much. Steve stops walking, heart aching, as Sam looks at him and then at Natasha and Bucky behind him and the expression on his face never softens. 

 

“Sam,” he whispers, voice catching and he can hear Bucky make a soft, distressed sound behind him. But Sam doesn’t flinch. He stares at Steve steadily, arms crossed over his chest and the lines on his face looking impossibly deep. 

 

“Remember me now, do you?” he says and there is nothing friendly about his tone. God, Sam had been watching him all this time, knowing Steve didn’t recognize him, forced to wait and observe for so many years. How agonizing that must have been. How hopeless and lonely. 

 

“I remember you, Sam,” Steve manages to say around a suddenly tight throat. He remembers everything, down to the day they met, when Steve flirted shamelessly with the handsome vet he always saw on his runs. That world doesn’t exist anymore, just some distant, shining place in his memory. Yet here is Sam, at the end of the world, old and tired but still the same man. Sam is looking at him, his expression unreadable, studying Steve’s face. When he relents, finally, he almost smiles. 

 

“Can an old friend get a hug, then?” he asks and he’s barely even done speaking before Steve is sweeping him up in a crushing hug that’s probably too much. But Sam doesn’t protest. He just hugs Steve back, thinner and frailer than he used to be but still strong. When they step apart, there is something almost light in his eyes, “It’s good to have you back, Steve,” he says before turning to Natasha. His smile deepens a little, gets a little warmer, “and you, Natasha.” Steve has never known Natasha to be in any way demonstrative in her affections but she hugs Sam for a long time, fingers tight in his cloak. If they are both a little brighter around the eyes, no one mentions it. 

 

“What about me, old man,” Bucky says and Steve almost turns to him with an admonishment on his tongue but Sam just barks a laugh and slaps Bucky on the shoulder. 

 

“I am an old man now, aren’t I?” he responds, and the expression on his face is almost wicked, “but I’m still younger than you, you dinosaur,” and Bucky positively beams, returning the slap with one of his own that nearly topples Sam to the ground. Steve barely refrains from rolling his eyes because yes, he remembers how these two were. 

 

The mood doesn’t stay light for much longer, as the shuffling of the people around them, watching the exchange, douses any joy from the reunion fairly quickly. 

 

“You need to know everything. All of you do,” Sam says, his face once again arranged into serious lines. He beckons them to follow and he leads them down into the earth, into the deepest parts of the compound, where the lights are dim and the earth sits heavy above them. Their steps echo hollowly on the metal walkways and they are eventually left alone by everyone but General Carter, who trails after them with distrust still burning in her eyes. 

 

They walk through living spaces, people in soft clothes wearing weary faces that watch them walk by with curious eyes. Lower down, they pass an armory that is impressively stocked and another huge space that is full of green, growing things under bright lamps and that radiates heat he can feel even from the doorway. He’s impressed, beyond impressed, how these people have managed to survive all these years. 

 

And then they step into a huge cavern, lit with just a single light high above their heads, and he stops short in shock. Behind him, Natasha gasps and Bucky murmurs something that sounds like appreciation. Sam doesn’t notice that they’ve all stopped at first, taking a couple strides before he pauses and looks over his shoulder. 

 

“Oh, yeah. We’ve been busy,” he says with a little shrug like it means little but Steve can tell he’s proud. And he should be. Steve looks around the space, at the shelves filled with books and records, paintings and movie reels. Steve steps towards the shelves, touches the leather spines of the books reverently. The collection here dwarfs the one he and Natasha have managed to put together in their little cabin by the lake and he is overcome by the dedication it must have taken to amass such an extensive collection of what is left of human society. Been busy indeed. While trying to survive, dodging death that watches from the sky, they have managed to save bits and pieces of art and literature and history along the way. 

 

“This is amazing,” he breathes, though amazing feels like an inadequate word. There’s a gentle touch of warm fingers against his wrist and when he looks, Bucky is standing behind him, eyes serious yet fond. Then he looks to Steve’s right and he follows Bucky’s gaze to a painting leaning against the wall with a few others and inhales sharply. There sits Edward Hopper’s ‘Lighthouse Hill’, familiar like an old friend. They saw that whole exhibit together when they were barely older than kids, sneaking into the modern museum because young aspiring-artist Steve Rogers heard they had an exhibit on Edward Hopper and he had to see the paintings in person. Bucky was never really an art person but once Steve had dragged him in front of the first painting, even he’d been mesmerized. Steve remembers Bucky had liked the one of the simple drugstore front, elegant and lovely. He insisted it reminded him of the drugstore down the street from his parents’ apartment and was excited by the prospect of a piece of home sitting upon a museum wall. But Steve had been drawn to the painting of a lighthouse on a hill, with its bright sky and the lovely play of light on the buildings. He swore he could hear the waves as they lapped at the bottom of the hill, could hear the call of seagulls and smell the sea. They had stood in front of those paintings for what felt like hours, soaking them in. 

 

Steve whispers, “It feels like…” 

 

“Home,” Bucky finishes for him and the hand around Steve’s wrist squeezes gently. Because it does, transporting them all the way back in time, to the marble floors and the soft murmurs of the other museum patrons, to the way his love of art had caught fire that day and how Bucky stayed at his side the whole time, steady and warm. 

 

He was wrong, he thinks as his eyes sting, humanity is not completely lost yet. There’s still something of them left to save. 

 

“Come on, Steve,” Bucky finally says, breaking the spell, “We’ll have all the time in the world to look at it when this is over,” and Steve lets himself be led away, though he can’t resist one last glance over his shoulder. 

 

***

 

“We should probably start with what you remember,” Sam begins by saying, after they are all settled in some back room carved out of the earth where they’ve managed to scrounged up scorched looking cushions and a few mismatched chairs. Sam valiantly takes the chair with the obvious wobble and Steve and Bucky are sitting across from each other on a few cushions that have seen better days. Natasha takes another uncomfortable looking chair, though the way she perches on it with one leg crossed over the other, one would think it is the most comfortable chair in the world. General Carter remains standing near the entrance, stiff and forbidding. 

 

“I can remember most of my life, right up to…the beginning of all this,” Natasha starts, indicating around her with her hands, “That part is still…fuzzy,” she frowns as she admits it and Steve is glad because he can’t remember how they had been taken by Control either. When he says as much, Sam nods thoughtfully but looks past them at Bucky, who is leaning his cheek on one drawn-up knee, face impossible to read. 

 

“You know what happened to me, Sam,” he says and he looks so unbearably sad, Steve almost can’t stop himself from reaching out and trying to comfort him. But Bucky isn’t looking at Steve. He’s staring up at Sam and they seem to have a whole conversation without speaking. Finally, Sam lowers his eyes. 

 

“They don’t know, though,” Sam responds and Bucky sighs, shoulder drooping. 

 

“I…” he starts, stops, clears his throat, licks his lips, starts again, “We were all there. Avengers, non-Avengers, a single super human team, all one big, chaotic force. We were assembled when NASA saw the thing hurtling at the moon and realized that it wasn’t an astroid but something else from deep space. No, I know what you’re thinking Steve and it was not like the Chitari. They saw it too late. By the time all of us were in one place, the moon was gone and we…” he ducks his head, letting his leg drop, and rubs his fingers through his long hair, “Even with all of us there, even with magic and super powers or whatever, we couldn’t fight a war while the planet was breaking apart around us. We couldn’t…” he breaks off, voice raw and Steve realizes that while fifty years have passed for everyone else, it was only a few weeks ago for Bucky, or maybe even a few days. 

 

And oh, how Steve knows about the rest of the world moving on while agony is still a fresh knife in his heart. 

 

“We couldn’t fight them,” Sam finishes when he realizes that Bucky can’t speak anymore, “All the hidden bases, all of our specialized skills, all of that meant nothing when the ocean swallowed whole continents and the earth shattered and those drones from hell gunned down every single one of us that were left,” Steve thinks about that, understands all at once what has been lost, and a wall of grief slams into him so hard he reels. When he looks up, Natasha’s face is a quiet study of horror and bitter anger. 

 

“Tony?” he manages to croak, “Wanda?” Sam looks at him, gaze steady, and shakes his head. Steve knew already what the answer would be but he bows his head under the weight of it. 

 

“How did you…how did you make it?” Natasha rasps when Steve cannot find his voice and he does not like the look on Sam’s face. Old and hollow. 

 

“Because I wasn’t where the heavy fighting was. Not towards the end, anyway. When we…when _you_ realized that people were going to be wiped out by natural disaster, you had me and the Parker kid start trying to save as many of them as we could. Strange was already gone, Thor must never have realized what was even happening because he never came. Bruce never came out of hiding, though I suspect he’s still out there somewhere. The rest of us,” he shrugged. Steve tries to remember, tries to pull on the strings that must surely be attached to the memories but they slip away and it all remains hazy and indistinct. 

 

“You and Nat were where the fighting was the worst,” Bucky says, voice calmer now that he’s had a moment to compose himself. He still won’t look up, head ducked and shoulders rounded, “Both of you and me and whoever was left and…we had to retreat, see. I was bleeding out. Every time we turned around, someone else was dead and we had to regroup so we went to…where you found me and you told me, Steve, that it was the only way to save me. And it was. I was dying. But I begged you not to put me in cryo. I begged. If everyone was going to die, I didn’t want to wake up a hundred years later when the generators finally failed and,” he looks up at Steve then, his eyes huge and dry, “I was so mad at you,” and suddenly Steve remembers it.

 

Desperate to get Bucky into the cryo chamber even as he bled out all over the floor while Bucky spewed shaky but no less furious curses at him. His advanced healing couldn’t do much with a hole blown clear through his chest, after all. He had been angry but Steve didn’t care. He knew the new cryo chambers that Dr. Cho and Bruce had developed would heal Bucky and he didn’t care how mad at him Bucky was, as long as he was alive. 

 

He doesn’t know how to apologize to Bucky because he should, for taking his choice away from him. But he can’t. The words stick in his throat and they taste like bile. 

 

There is silence in the room, everyone watching each other, before Bucky pulls the drive out of his jacket pocket and hands it wordlessly to Sam. They share another look that seems to be an entire conversation in a glance before Sam nods to Carter and she disappears for a moment before bringing back an old laptop. It complains loudly when they set it up but it comes on, screen blue as it glares balefully at them. Sam puts the drive into the back of it, clicks one of the video files and Steve has to hold his breath. 

 

He is unprepared. Everything is there, from all different cameral angles. The moon cracking up in the sky, the earth shattering apart in the process. The terror as entire populations were swept away or crushed, turned to dust and ash. Then the drones come for whatever is left. Steve watches Scott Lang go down first, Rhodie, and Clint. Natasha makes a soft noise of distress when she watches that and Steve closes his eyes for just a moment, aching. Sometimes the video feed cuts out, leaving nothing but static, sometimes it jumps from multiple sources every few seconds. At this point, there wasn’t much left of anything but Friday had somehow managed to find and save everything it could. Then he sees the moment a drone gets between him and Bucky, their figures tiny and almost delicate on the screen, watches a hole tearing itself open in Bucky’s chest. 

 

Watches him fall to the ground. 

 

It’s Natasha that gets them out, in the very cruiser that they fly now and there is a feeling very much like dread sitting low and heavy in the pit of Steve’s stomach. 

 

The feed goes blank for a moment. And then, quite suddenly, they are looking at the big living space in the base under the mountain, the video clearer than anything before that. So he sees himself and Natasha step into the room where a dark haired woman Steve has never met, Tony, Wanda and another man who’s name he never learned, are sitting, appearing like they are trying to regroup. They seem to light up with weary hope when Steve walks through the door, Natasha at his six. 

 

He can’t see his own face but by the way the others fall back, running towards the back rooms, it must have been terrifying. And then, behind him, swarm in dozens of drones. 

 

They had led the drones there. 

 

Like starving wolves set loose among sheep. The whole while, Steve and Natasha stand there, like they are drones themselves, watching as what is left of their team is slaughtered.

 

“Why?” Steve hears himself ask, though his ears are ringing and his entire body recoils in horror, “Why would we…?” but he knows the answer to that already. 

 

Control, or whatever that thing is, had gotten them already. Had made them kill their own friends. He drops his face into his hands, the scream in his throat stuck so fast he thinks it will be there forever. 

 

“Please,” he hears Natasha gasp, “Please, turn it off,” and he can’t look to see if she is crying because his own body shakes and his face is wet under his palms. No one touches them, no one offers a gentle touch but the laptop powers down and they are left in blessed silence. 

 

Tony’s scream as he was torn apart will haunt Steve until he draws his final breath. And he will deserve it. 

 

“Is this what you dreamed, Natasha,” he whispers and when he doesn’t get a response back, he knows he’s right. Silence drags on and on and they sit there in the dark now knowing the truth. And he wishes he did not. He wishes, with everything he has in him, that Sam had never stolen them away to start breathing doubts down their necks, that they had never had those dreams, had never thought to ask questions. 

 

No, Steve amends a moment later, as self-loathing sits on him heavier than the weight of the earth above his head. He doesn’t not wish those things. 

 

He wishes that he had died in the beginning, when all of this started. 

 

He wishes that he had died long before that, drowned in ice and forgotten in history. 

 

***

 

Steve is sitting out under the stars atop a small hill outside the compound when Bucky finds him. He doesn’t say anything at first, just sits down on the ground beside Steve, close enough so that their crossed knees and broad shoulders press against each other. His presence is unfairly soothing and Steve almost tells him to go away because he doesn’t want soothing right now. But he bites his tongue and lets Bucky stay, secretly soaking up the warmth from his body. 

 

“How is Nat?” he finally asks, tipping his head back to look up at the sky. The stars are bright tonight, with no dust or clouds in the atmosphere to obscure them. He counts the constellations that he can see without turning his head and listens to Bucky breathe beside him. 

 

“She’ll be okay,” Bucky says eventually, like he gave Steve’s question more consideration than it warranted, “This isn’t the first time someone has used her brain against her will,” and Steve knows that. He knows her history. 

 

“Doesn’t that make it worse?” he asks and Bucky sighs. Reaches out and takes Steve’s hand in his own, curls their fingers together. It feels like a supernova where their palms fit together and he clenches his fingers, suddenly desperate to be close to Bucky. 

 

“Maybe, in some ways. But she can accept, perhaps with time, that what she was made to do when her mind didn’t belong to her isn’t her fault. Because she’s had to once before. I don’t think you can, Steve,” and he’s right. Steve doesn’t think he can ever reconcile it to himself. He let the drones kill his friends, his family; he watched himself do it. Bucky must know exactly what he’s thinking because he shifts so that he is facing Steve, his metal hand coming up to touch where his flesh hand is wrapped around Steve’s, “Steve, as probably the leading authority on having someone hitch a ride in your brain and using it to do unspeakable things, at least listen to me. You have to forgive yourself. All that, it wasn’t you. You still can’t even remember doing it, even though you remember everything else,” Steve snorts and looks away. 

 

“But I did do it, didn’t I? That was me in there, letting those things in, letting them kill everyone,” he says stubbornly, even though he wants to believe Bucky. Who huffs and pinches the back of Steve’s captured hand with metal fingers. His expression is gently amused when Steve frowns at him. 

 

“You know that is the same argument I gave you, right? When you insisted it wasn’t me who killed all those people,” Steve makes a face and wants to say that it’s not the same thing but it really kind of is. He stays quiet for a moment, searching Bucky’s face and finds nothing but love and understanding. 

 

“I want to show you something,” he blurts out, not realizing what he wants until he says it. Surprised, Bucky lets himself be hauled to his feet and dragged down the winding paths that cross-cross over the hills down to the cruiser. There are a few sentries on watch scattered about on the hills, slivers of shadows in the darkness, but no one makes a move to stop them from leaving. He takes the pilot’s chair where Nat usually sits and takes them up into the air, angling north. 

 

It only takes twenty minutes to get there, the lake shining silver under the blanket of stars, the cabin invisible in the darkness. Steve takes them down, lands less gracefully than Natasha and smiles a small, uncertain smile at Bucky. 

 

“Come on,” he says softly, almost like he’s afraid to break the quiet spell that has fallen over them, holding out his hand for Bucky to take. Which he does, with a curious lift of his eyebrows and a crooked smile. Lord, Steve has always loved that smile, hasn’t he? It has changed over the years but there is still mischief at the lifted corner of Bucky’s lips, the shape of it still curling and wicked. He steps forward impulsively, pressed his lips to it, touches his tongue to the corner of Bucky’s mouth. 

 

When he pulls away, Bucky is watching him with intense eyes that are shadowed in the light of the cruiser’s cabin. The moment feels monumental and Steve feels like he should say something but he can’t think of a single word to say. So he just tugs Bucky out of the cruiser onto the soft sandy dirt at the edge of the lake. 

 

The air here is cool and it smells green and clean. Bucky takes a surprised breath, takes in the stunted trees that ring the clearing, now just darker shapes in the night. There’s a breeze, gentle, coming down from the tops of the mountains and though there is ice hidden in it, there is also life. Bucky looks around, trying to see all around him, though the broken moon that sits on the horizon and the roof of stars doesn’t offer enough light to make out too much. 

 

“What is this place?” Bucky asks, voice hushed, “It smells… _alive_ ,” Steve doesn’t need him to add that everywhere else smells like scorched earth and loss. He squeezes Bucky’s hand and lets it go. 

 

“Hold on, stay right there,” and he dashes over to the cabin, ties back the curtain that acts as a wall at the east end and nearly trips over a sturdy wooden chest that occupies space next to the bed in his search. He finds the stash of candles they keep on a shelf and pats around for the matches he knows are there. They don’t light the candles often, trying to conserve them as much as they can. But he sets them around the cabin, careful not to put any too close to books or anything else that might catch and soon the small space is filled with warm, flickering light. 

 

When he turns to go get Bucky, he finds him standing in the doorway, eyes unfathomable as he looks around. 

 

“You made this place?” he asks and his voice sounds raw. Steve shrugs, suddenly self-conscious, looking around himself to try and see it through Bucky’s eyes. It’s terribly rustic, the wood of the three constructed walls and the roof often still with bark hanging from the planks or with scorch marks on the pieces that had been salvaged. It had been hard to scrounge up enough nails so in many places, they’d gotten creative with rope and a tab system that seems to have worked so far. The white curtains that cover the places in the walls left open to the elements were Natasha’s find as was the small, round stained glass window fitted inexpertly above the doorway. 

 

“Nat and I did, yeah,” he responds, feeling love for their little cabin swell in his heart. It had taken them a long time to do all of this, decades, but it was the only home they have left. Bucky whistles. 

 

“Well, color me impressed,” and Steve has to laugh a little, the misery and grief that had been clinging to him for hours starting to become dull background noise. At least for now. Bucky peruses the solid wall opposite the bed that is filled with rough shelves crammed with all of their finds. Runs his fingers over singed book covers, admires a tarnished silver mirror, picks up the little knickknacks one by one to admire them, laughing a little at a worn baseball cap with the Dodgers symbol on the front. When he gets to the record player that takes the place of honor on one of the shelves with dozens of accompanying records, he shoots Steve a complicated look. 

 

“This thing work?” he asks, sly, and Steve nods, rubs his hands on his pants. He doesn’t know why he’s nervous all of a sudden but his heart is pounding and his face feels warm. He _knows_ that look in Bucky’s eyes, dark and waiting. There is a charge in the air as Bucky hunts through the meager collection of records, sometimes making an appreciative hum in the back of his throat. Finally he settles on one, turning it over in his hands and Steve already knows which one it is. It’s old, an original, and before he’d broken through the chains on his memory, he would listen to it and wonder why it sounded so familiar. 

 

Bucky puts it on, setting the needle down and the cabin is filled with the soft sound of Mildred Bailey’s sweet voice. Steve has to swallow hard because he remembers the first time they’d heard her song ‘Lover Come Back to Me.’ Bucky had been mesmerized and Steve had loved his enthusiasm. For a moment, his mother’s tiny, cold-water apartment materializes around them, both of them so very young, Bucky dragging Steve around the apartment as he tries to teach him to dance, both of them laughing like loons. When Bucky turns and their eyes meet, he can see Bucky remembers the same thing. 

 

“Come here,” Bucky says softly, face shadowed in the golden light of the candles and Steve is helpless, drawn in. Bucky’s hands slide around Steve’s hips, his waist and his lips are soft and willing when Steve kisses him. They make a brief attempt to sway to the music, wrapped around each other as if it is the only way to breathe and Steve, his hands in Bucky’s hair and with the taste of Bucky’s breath on his tongue, he thinks maybe it is. 

 

Dancing isn’t what either of them want though, hands touching, peeling away clothes and leaving behind desperate prints in skin as they clutch at one another. 

 

“Steve,” Bucky gasps into his mouth, like Steve’s name is a prayer and Steve cannot help backing him to the bed, tipping him onto the sheets. Sheds the last of their clothes with quick fingers and then it is just miles of skin on skin, so hot he thinks he will burn right up and disappear in a cloud of smoke. Bucky touches him with the same heat in his eyes and the tips of his fingers, making sparks ignite over Steve’s skin. And he doesn’t argue when Bucky rolls them over, pushes Steve’s legs apart, presses fingers, tongue, himself into Steve’s body like he owns it. 

 

Like he’s known Steve’s body all of his life. 

 

With Bucky moving inside of him, Steve presses love into Bucky’s mismatched shoulders, his neck, his lips and he comes with Bucky’s name feeling like rapture on his tongue. 

 

**

 

Later, when they lay tangled together, skin cooling and fingers still skimming together, twining and twisting apart to touch some more only to curl together again, Steve looks into Bucky’s eyes and loves him with everything he is. He always has and he knows he always will. Bucky must see it because he smiles and turns his head so his face is smushed against Steve’s shoulder. With his leg thrown heavily over Steve’s thigh and his metal arm wrapped around Steve’s chest, he anchors Steve to the bed. His hair is very soft when Steve runs his fingers through it. 

 

“We have to be back before dawn,” he says quietly, regretfully and Bucky sighs. It is not an unhappy sound. 

 

“We will be,” he murmurs against Steve’s skin and doesn’t move. They will be, Steve knows. They have to be. But for now, they can lay here for a couple hours, perhaps doze, perhaps make love again, and pretend, for a while, that the world outside won’t need them in the morning. 

 

***

 

Natasha gives both Steve and Bucky long looks when they reappear at the base before the sun has even begun bleeding silver into the black sky but she doesn’t say anything. Just gives Steve a little smile and pats his arm. I’m glad you found this again, she seems to say. And that is that. 

 

Sam is waiting for him too, something in his expression that Steve can’t read. His dark gaze jumps back and forth between Steve and Bucky before he quirks a crooked smile at Steve. 

 

“I have something for you,” he says and he almost looks younger. The lines in his face not as deep and his eyes not as unfathomable. Bucky waves him off, going to where Natasha is beckoning him and Steve lets himself be led into the collection gallery, teeming with the remains of human culture. Intrigued, he pauses by the Hopper when Sam holds up his hand before making his way to the back of the cavernous room that is cloaked with shadows. There he rustles around behind a few stacked paintings and an odd desk with copious carvings and a few scorch marks on the top of it. 

 

Steve’s breath catches when Sam finds what he’s looking for and brings it back. 

 

It’s Steve’s shield, looking none the worse for wear, despite all it has been through. 

 

He can’t remember how he lost it now, or when. There are three scorch marks that blasted away the paint and there’s another single, long scratch that bisects the star right down the middle. If he concentrates on it, he recalls an impact the like he’d never felt before and a clear ringing that came from both the shield and his ears. If that was when he lost it, he doesn’t know but it’s back in his hands and he feels like he’s be reunited with an old friend. Sam is almost smiling at him when he looks up again. 

 

“Where did you find this?” he breathes, gratitude making his throat tight. 

 

“It took some doing, I admit,” Sam says, arms crossed over his chest, “I couldn’t remember exactly…where you’d fallen,” he says it stoically but Steve still winces. Presses the shield against his chest as if that would protect him from something he can’t even remember happening. Sam barrels on like he doesn’t notice, “There was a storm, though, one of the ones with those crazy winds, you know? A couple years back. Must have blown the earth away because there it was, just poking out of the ground like it was tired of lying about in the dirt.” 

 

Steve looks down at his shield, at the red, white, and blue, and suddenly feels strangely hollow. But he puts it on his arm and gives Sam what he hopes is a confident smile though he suspects it’s wobbly. 

 

“Thank you, Sam,” he says quietly. Sam’s gaze is piercing when their eyes meet. 

 

“I knew you would need it again, someday. There were a lot of voices telling me it was hopeless, that you would never break through the brainwashing but I knew. I knew you’d be back,” and the absolute certainty makes Steve’s breath catch in his throat. After Bucky, Sam always had the most faith in him. Without thought, Steve crosses the space between them and sweeps Sam up in a hug. He has to hide his face because he’s afraid he might cry. 

 

“Thank you for not giving up,” he rasps and Sam gives him a few hard pats on the back before they break apart. He’s grinning when Steve steps away, gap-toothed and familiar. 

 

“Yeah, man. It’s good to be proven right,” and they both laugh a little wetly, “Alright, lets get to work. Gotta save the world one more time.” Steve laughs again and follows Sam back out of the gallery, his shield a heavy, familiar weight on his arm. When Bucky sees him, sees the shield on his arm, he gives Steve a complicated smile that Steve can’t read. It should worry him, he thinks, but now that he has the shield again, he feels better. Like he can protect what’s left of humanity. He doesn’t think he’s worthy to carry the shield anymore but if there’s even just one person left, he’ll wield it.

 

They drag the acquired drone up from where it’s stored in the armory to the large entry chamber so it’s easier to send it out and Steve and Natasha set to work reprogramming it. Around them, the base hums like a kicked hive, soldiers arming themselves and taking their spots at the sentry posts outside or sending the civilians down deep to keep them safe. Bucky is among them, bolstering their sprits with soft words of encouragement and giving them strategy tips. Steve listens to him with half an ear and smiles to himself. He thinks all the way back to the war, the first one, and how Bucky was an excellent Sergeant to his men, even haunted as he was by getting captured. The Howlies always jokingly called him ‘mom’ but Bucky cared for their well-being, looked after them in anyway he could as Sergeant. 

 

No matter how much time has passed, no matter the trials, underneath it all, the two punks from Brooklyn are still here. 

 

Steve is just finishing the reprogramming sequence that would send the drone back up to Control when a loud explosion startles everyone in the chamber. A hush falls over the room, every head turning towards the door. Steve reaches for his shield just as he sees Bucky scrambling up the scaffolding onto the catwalks above their heads, at Steve’s six. There’s another explosion and a chorus of human cries that are quickly cut off. The sound is chilling. 

 

“They’re going to get in,” Natasha’s voice rings through the quiet, like a gong being struck. Every head turns towards her and Steve is proud of them all when he doesn’t see a single person with fear in their eyes. Just firmed jaws and hard eyes. General Carter stands nearby and Sam has made his way to a gutted drone that serves as a kind of armor for the machine gun perched on a platform in front of it. He gives Steve a little salute when see him looking. Though Steve’s chest is tight with the anticipation of imminent battle, he feels better for having Sam at his back. 

 

Sam and Bucky and Natasha too, steady as a rock. Like they used to be.

 

Almost as soon as he thinks that, the heavy metal doors that protect the entrance peel back in an epic series of blasts, sending anyone standing too close scurrying back or flying backwards. Three don’t get up again. 

 

“Fire!” Steve yells as ten drones screech into the hold and gunfire cracks out. Steve has his shield and he uses it, ducking under it to get away from a drone’s return fire before letting it lose into the fray. A drone goes down somewhere to his right, a bullet in a vulnerable spot in its armor. His shield doesn’t do much damage at first, bouncing off the drone’s exoskeleton with just enough force to make them wobble in the air for a moment. Ducking behind a sturdy beam, he takes a quick assessment of the chaos that has taken hold. He sees Carter in the corner, pulling the trigger steadily, taking down a drone of her own and Bucky takes down another. But the others are pinned down and he can’t see Natasha anywhere. 

 

Then Steve sees an opening and flings his shield again, hitting a drone in a seam, making it crumple and it screams, tilting into another and they catapult into a wall with an almighty bang. Somewhere, someone cheers but there’s still five left and they are steadily gaining ground, pushing deeper into the bunker. 

 

Steve sees the girl when he’s craning his neck to find another trajectory for the shield, huddled in the doorway, her leg pinned under a fallen strip of catwalk. There’s tears running down her face and she’s screaming, beams of gunfire burning the metal walls over her head. He doesn’t think. He sprints across the chamber, bringing the shield around and skids to a halt covering himself and the girl. 

 

“Hold tight, okay?” he calls to her, reaching to lift the beam off of her foot. But a drone must have broken off from the pack because he’s suddenly pinned under concentrated fire, flaring against his shield in a constant barrage. He tries to keep himself as small as possible behind the shield while curling around the girl. She’s not screaming anymore, a small hand curled in his jacket. A shot gets close enough to his thigh that he can feel the heat of it as it buries into the floor beside him. 

 

Just as he thinks he won’t be able to hold it off any longer, there’s a pop of a rifle right on top of them and the drone thumps to the floor with a whine and a shower of sparks. 

 

Steve lowers his shield slowly to find General Carter standing over him, her eyes ablaze and her rifle practically smoking.

 

“Thank you,” he says, taking her offered hand and getting to his feet. The girl is whimpering now, clearly in pain and he quickly bends to pick the beam off her leg. He offers her a small smile in an attempt to comfort her but once he has her standing and sent her limping to safety, he realizes that the fighting has moved deeper into the base, leaving behind still bodies of humans and smoking carcasses of drones. 

 

“We had best go, Captain,” Carter says and Steve nods. He spares a quick glance over his shoulder, sick with the thought that Bucky or Natasha might be laying on the cold floor behind him but the base rumbles with an explosion and he can’t stop. Not even when he thinks he catches a glimpse of Sam, limp in the gutted drone turret. 

 

There’s a drone in the gallery, its back to the entryway as it targets the people gathered there, taking each one of them in its sights. Steve doesn’t pause. He leaps at it and rams the edge of the shield deep, breaking through at the back where the exhaust is. It tries to get its gun around, to blast him to hell but he uses all of his strength to pull it from the air and shoves the shield straight through the other side. His own guttural cry echoes in his ears, adrenaline surging through him like fire. Rage burns in him, pure and diamond bright, like a sword in his heart. 

 

And just like that, it’s done. 

 

Bucky and Natasha had chased down the two that were left and they come back to find him standing over the halved remains of the drone. Natasha snorts at him and Bucky lifts an eyebrow. 

 

“Show off,” he grunts and just like that, the rage is gone and Steve stands down gratefully. Before he can come up with some kind of witty retort, though, a young man comes racing up to them, eyes wild. 

 

“Please,” he says, “he’s not going to make it,” and he doesn’t need to tell them who he means. Steve flashes back to seeing Sam, still and limp behind the machine gun he’d been manning and he follows the young man back with dread in his heart. 

 

The entry is worse than he thought, with bodies strewn about and good portions of the walls and supports twisted and destroyed. The drone they were reprograming is gone, nothing but a smoldering twist of ugly metal and the dread turns ugly. Consuming. They find Sam where he’d left him, though he’s awake now, breathing harshly in pain. When he sees Steve, he gives a weak, pained smile. 

 

“We almost had ‘em, didn’t we Cap?” he says and chokes. Blood trickles out of his mouth and Steve sees it, the wound in his gut. It will be an ugly way to go and Steve wants to scream. Sam deserves better than this. Steve kneels next to him as General Carter yells for medical supplies, crouching on his other side so she can press her hand to the wound. 

 

“We did, Sam. Had ‘em on the ropes,” his own voice is rough with grief and he takes Sam’s hand in his own when its offered, holding it tight. Sam tries to laugh but only ends up choking some more. There’s a warm, heavy hand on Steve’s shoulder and Natasha is by Sam’s head. She doesn’t touch him but her eyebrows are pinched and her mouth trembling. 

 

“You never were a good liar, Steve,” Sam rasps and Steve’s laugh comes out more like a sob. Fuck, they were so close. They’d been so _close_. Sam tries to crane his head around to see the reprogrammed drone but there’s nothing left to see. 

 

“It’s gone, Sam,” Steve whispers and doesn’t add, we failed, though it rings over and over in his head, “It was destroyed. We have no way to get the fuel cells up to Control,” for a moment he thinks Sam is going to give in. He closes his eyes and drops his head back, face looking impossibly old. There’s a heavy silence for long moments, save for the soft whispers of the people gathering around them, checking their dead, standing in ceremony for their injured leader. 

 

“I have an idea,” Bucky speaks up suddenly and Steve turns around to look at him, feeling an overwhelming surge of trepidation. That’s Bucky’s ‘I have a crazy plan that no one is going to like but it’s going to work’ voice. Steve is very well acquainted with that tone. “Didn’t that thing want me? Something about a more effective team,” Bucky asks. Surprised, Steve glances at Natasha, who’s face is unreadable and then back down at Sam, who is watching Bucky shrewdly. 

 

“What, exactly, does that mean?” Sam asks and Bucky throws his hands out to the sides. 

 

“It means we have a way in. It wants me and Steve so we’ll be the ones to fly it up,” Steve closes his eyes in denial because _no_. No, he can’t do that. And then Sam’s hand squeezes his again, not a trace of weakness in his grip. When Steve meets his eyes, he can see the answer there, a solution that doesn’t seem much better but one that will work without Bucky dying with him. 

 

Steve firms his jaw and nods. 

 

***

 

The cruiser flies quietly out of earth’s atmosphere, his only company the soft hum of its engines. He looks over the controls and thinks of Tony. Of Tony designing it and building it and after all this time, something he created was once again going to save the planet. Steve takes a shuddering breath to steady himself, glances back at the cryo pod in the bay behind him. He’s not alone. Last time he died, he was completely alone. Peggy’s crackly voice over the radio had only made him feel lonelier. But the pod is there keeping him company as he flies the cruiser towards Control. 

 

It glows in the light reflecting from earth, huge and looming in his sights. 

 

They’d never suspected its arrival, he recalls as he thinks back to when this began. 

 

_Gathered together in the shining tower in Manhattan, all the heroes of Earth gathered in one place. It had been the first time he’d seen Tony since Siberia and the tension between them hurt. They’d never been good friends but they had been family and despite their differences, even with Tony trying to kill Bucky, Steve still ached from losing him._

 

_“I just want you to know I don’t like him being here,” Tony had said stiffly in greeting when Steve had stepped out of the elevator in Avengers Tower, Bucky and Sam at his heels. He’d only brought Bucky because when Tony called him, he said to bring everyone._

 

_“Noted,” Steve had responded, just as stiff and breathed a deep breath, told himself that he needed to get over it because they were there for a reason. And then he’d seen who was there. Tony really had meant everyone, including a slew of people Steve didn’t know. A man with strange clothes and silver at his temples. The devil he’d heard rumors about, a tall black man and a woman with dark hair and a frown that looked permanent. The Parker boy was there too, looking distinctly out of place but also rather grim. Steve realized then just how important this must be and he’d turned back to Tony, not inclined to feel so hostile anymore._

 

_“What’s going on?” he’d asked softly and got a sharp look for his trouble. Then Tony had waved at a screen to his right and said,_

 

_“This is what’s going on,” and turned away. On the screen had been a news broadcast, the banner underneath announcing that NASA had spotted this huge object hurtling straight for the moon._

 

_“…projected to slam straight into the middle of it, Sally, and right back out the other side. The implications for earth could be catastrophic…” Steve swallowed hard, looked at everyone assembled, noting Natasha’s bright banner of red hair, Clint and Scott beside her. Noting Bruce’s absence as well as Thor’s. And he squared his jaw and did what he always did._

 

_He led his team to the best of his ability_. 

 

Now, as Steve draws closer to Control, he is grateful that he and Tony had at least reconciled, as best they could, in the end. He misses all of them, each one of his lost team members a gaping, empty ache in his heart, added to the ones that have been there for years. His mother, the Howling Commandos, Peggy. 

 

He gets another flash, of…

 

… _fire coming down all around them, he and Natasha back to back, cut off from the rest of the team by a swarm of drones. His leg screamed at him, aching from a glancing shot and his shield is gone, buried under rubble from several fallen buildings. They’d evacuated this section of Los Angeles weeks ago but there had still been reports of civilians trapped in little pockets all around the city. Or, what was left of the city. But the drones had seen Steve and his team fly in and descended upon them, like an army from hell._

 

_He knew, in that moment, facing down the circle of drones that numbered in the hundreds, that he and Natasha were going to die._

 

_But they hadn’t died that day._

 

_The drones had gone quiet, looming around them, like they were waiting for something. And then a voice spoke out of them, horrible and cold, and it said,_

 

_“You are a very effective team,” and he knew nothing more._

 

Steve leans over as Control opens to him, three drones flying out to meet him, and switches the com link back on. Natasha had fixed it before he left, her face drawn and her eyes sad. But all she said to him was, “I’ll take care of him,” kissed Steve on the cheek and watched him fly away. He knows she would have come but it made more sense this way. 

 

“Hello, Steve,” Maria’s voice says through the link, though the video is just a buzz of static, “I sense another person is on board with you,” he hates her, he thinks as she talks. Hatred burns like acid on the back of his tongue as he pilots the cruiser into Control and refuses to look as the doors close behind him. Sealing his fate. 

 

“Yeah, Maria. You said that the survivor and I make a more…effective team,” he answers, teeth gritted. Around him is something so alien he has a hard time making out what he’s even seeing. He flies through a huge chamber that houses thousands more drones, all tucked into the walls, dormant and deadly, “I agree, so I brought him for reprogramming.” He lies like his life depends on it and almost laughs at the irony. Putting on a performance of a lifetime just so he can die. 

 

He travels out of the chamber with the drones and the next chamber he goes through is dark, static clinging to the walls. Every once and a while, he sees an image in the static and they look like memories. His memories. Natasha’s memories.

 

Sickened, he turns away. 

 

“Is that so,” Maria says only the voice no longer sounds human, “You and Natasha have been very insubordinate lately, Steve.” Steve does not shiver at the sound, at the menace in the voice. He just keeps his hands on the controls and takes a deep breath as he is escorted into one last chamber. This one is huge, with a walkway reaching from the doorway to the middle of the open space, where a strange, triangular object hovers. Its single red eye watches him. 

 

It looks hungry. 

 

“Yeah, well, I feel bad about that,” Steve responds and probably doesn’t sell it because the object ripples oddly, as if it’s angry. Or confused. 

 

“You’re lying,” it says as Steve lands the cruiser on the walkway. His hands are shaking but his legs are steady when he stands, when he goes to the back and drags the cryo pod out onto the platform. It is cold here, impossibly cold but it doesn’t matter. He came here to die anyway. When he's standing before the glaring object, its red eye unblinking and unforgiving, he straightens up and looks right at it. 

 

“Do you know what Horatio said?” he asks, bending to open the pod, having no trouble remembering the sequence of numbers that would bring its occupant back to life. He hasn’t been in there long and shouldn’t need very much time at all to recover. He said, “To every man upon this earth, Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better, than facing fearful odds…” The cryo pod opens with a hiss of frozen air and inside Sam’s eyes flicker open. He is weak, almost too weak to sit up at first. 

 

“You don’t have to die, Steve. No one needs to die,” the object says and then realizes its been duped when Steve grips Sam’s forearms and levers him up, “That is not the survivor you promised me, Steve,” and the object’s surface slithers, agitated, angry. The drones that had escorted him in begin to whine, uncertain. Steve keeps his eyes trained on Sam, meets his dark, fading gaze. The purple glow of the fuel cells, wired to the detonator in Sam’s hand, turns their skin pale and sickly.

 

“… for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?” Steve finishes and looks straight at the object, at its terrible eye, at its black surface that sucks in light and which roils and shivers with rage. The drones know what’s going on now and are racing toward him and Sam. But they’ll be too late. Steve puts his hand over Sam’s and they share one last, sharp-toothed smile. 

 

“I am your God,” the thing says and Steve grins. Thinks of Bucky, asleep and safe on the bed at the cabin even now, the Hopper painting rolled up at his feet. An apology. A goodbye. 

 

“Fuck you, Maria,” he answers and together, he and Sam detonate the fuel cells. 

 

***

 

This is what he’ll remember later: Sam’s face, in that split second before detonation, still and at peace. The scream of rage of Control, too little, too late. 

 

And something metal slamming into him just as the fuel cells catch, encasing his entire body. 

 

But that isn’t until later. 

 

Now he opens his eyes after never expecting to open them again and he sees blue sky peering through a hole in a huge canvas tent and Bruce Banner, of all people, leaning over him. Steve blinks at him, confused and feeling weak. Bruce smiles at him. It is a weary, lined thing but it’s there. 

 

“Hey there, Steve. Welcome back to the land of the living,” he says softly and even as he speaks, there’s movement at his shoulder. Steve’s heart leaps when he sees red hair and big, green eyes. He tries to speak but his throat is so raw, making any kind of sound feels like he’s being stabbed with a million white-hot needles. Bruce hurriedly gets him some water which he gulps eagerly as Natasha sits down at his side. When he’s done drinking, he tries to speak again. 

 

“Wha’appened?” he manages and it doesn’t hurt quite as much. Natasha shrugs, trying to be casual but there is a quiet joy about her, and she clutches Steve’s hand tightly, as if she doesn’t even realize she’s holding it. 

 

“We’re not really sure,” she murmurs, “When we found you, you had a couple of scraps of metal around your legs and arm that look like pieces from an Iron Man suit. I think…” she bites her lip, “I think it was the cruiser. Control might have disabled Friday but there were probably still some active safety protocols left. I don’t know for sure but…” she trails off and Bruce picks up the thread, his curly hair more wild than Steve remembers it being. 

 

“Whatever it is, it saved your life. When you did whatever you did up there, that object was completely obliterated. It was seen clear around the western Hemisphere,” he smiles wanly, “Quite a show you put on.” It makes Steve smile a little, though he’s exhausted already, eyes drooping. 

 

“Aim to please,” he whispers, sleep making his limbs heavy. Just before he slides under, he feels Natasha lean over him, her hair brushing across his nose and lips and hears her say,  


“I didn’t tell him I was looking for you but he’s waiting for you. By the lake, Steve, he’s been there all this time…” and Steve takes her words with him into his dreams like they are a promise. 

 

***

 

Nearly two years. 

 

That’s how long it takes for Steve to find his way back. There’s no transportation anymore, and with the cruiser long gone, travel is all done on foot. Which is difficult for him, as he’d been nearly crippled in the blast, even with the suit on to protect him. His spine healed eventually, though it took an agonizingly long time. 

 

But the serum can’t grow back an arm. 

 

He spends a lot of time staring at it, at where it used to be, thinking that now he and Bucky match. It had been his shield arm too. Steve can still feel the weight of his shield on it, can still recall what it felt like to catch a blast on it, felt like to wave, to lift food to his mouth, to dress himself with two hands. To run those fingers over Bucky’s skin and sink them into his soft hair. It’s this that pushes him, that drives him halfway across the world, that keeps him walking when he doesn’t think he can walk anymore. 

 

Natasha is there as is Bruce and all of the people Bruce has been collecting since earth’s fall fifty years ago. 

 

Steve doesn’t know how they found each other again and he doesn’t ask but he does know Natasha found Steve’s body crumpled in a field of grayish grass of what was once Romania. Or as close as they can figure. When he asks how Natasha managed to even find him at all, let alone as quickly as she did, she just answers cagily, 

 

“I watched the explosion too,” and says nothing else. 

 

Steve lets her have her secrets. She’s already told him what he needed to hear, that first day he awoke. 

 

That Bucky is safe. That Bucky is alive. That Bucky is waiting for him at the lake. At the cabin.

 

So Steve walks his way back to him. 

 

When he finally reaches the lake, the mountains in the background now covered in green, the sun shining on their rocky heads, on the rippling water at his feet, on the cabin that sits on the other shore, he stops his aching feet and breathes. 

 

Breathes in the clean scent. 

 

There is a rustle at that moment and he opens his eyes that he didn’t realize he had closed to see Bucky there, kneeling in the dirt, gently pruning some plants. It’s a garden, Steve realizes after blinking in slow incomprehension. Not very big but there’s more cleared land nearby that looks like it could become part of the garden in time and he feels his heart swell. The cabin looks bigger now too, the newest addition clearly not done yet. There’s a line strung between two trees with clothes hanging from it and a small shed with wood for fire. Bucky has made this place his home, just as Natasha said, as if he thought staying in this place would make it easier for Steve to find him again. 

 

He must make some kind of noise because Bucky looks up sharply, a hat shading his eyes and his long hair curling around his ears. It’s very long now, Steve thinks with something of a shock, pulled back in a braid that he wishes he could have seen Bucky learn how to do. But Bucky’s face is the same, even across the distance of the lake, achingly lovely, lovingly familiar. 

 

It does something complicated when Bucky realizes who he’s looking at, shock and disbelief and a moment of horror, as if he thinks his eyes are playing cruel tricks on him. 

 

Then Bucky’s lips form the shape of Steve’s name and joy begins to light up his eyes. 

 

“It’s me, Buck,” he calls, smiling helplessly. Bucky's face crumples for a minute and then he’s tearing around the edge of the lake, taking the longer way in his rush and Steve laughs a little, waits for him. He doesn’t think he could move now anyway, his feet feeling the long journey to get here. He gets a second to realize Bucky’s not going to stop before he’s on top of him, knocking him down into the grass that grows at the lake’s edge. The wind kicks out of his lungs with a startled ‘oof!’ but he doesn’t care because Bucky is laughing and there’s tears dripping onto Steve’s skin and Bucky is kissing him everywhere on his face. Steve laughs with him, brings his arm around Bucky’s back to curl his fingers at the nape of his neck, and tries to kiss him back. 

 

“Steve,” Bucky is whispering, “Steve, Steve, _Steve_ ,” and Steve gentles him with a touch and a longer kiss, sweet and lingering. Bucky’s lips taste like sunshine and mint leaves and his weight on top of Steve is wonderful. 

 

“Sorry I made you wait so long,” he says, feeling contrite. Coils the braid around his fingers as Bucky leans his forehead against Steve’s. His hair is still delightfully soft, just like he remembered it. 

 

“I knew you were still alive,” Bucky murmurs, still grinning around the tears that are dripping from his dark eyelashes, “It should be impossible, with the explosion but I knew…I _knew_ ,” Steve kisses him again, because he’s been aching for Bucky’s lips, licking the taste out from between them until they are breathless and grinning, uncoordinated. Bucky fiddles with Steve’s empty sleeve, eyes bright and very blue, “We match now,” he says, though they kind of don’t, his metal arm flashing in the sun and Steve laughs out loud. 

 

The sound fills the clearing. 

 

“Yeah, I knew you’d say that,” because he did and Bucky’s tears spill over again, so that he has to hide his face in Steve’s neck. They lay there like that for God knows how long, Bucky sprawled atop Steve with a warm breeze curling around them that brings the scent of water and green, growing things and everything that he’s been dreaming of for so long. 

 

Steve smiles up at the sky, his own joy burning in his chest, and he knows that he has finally come home. 

 

 

Fin. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you thought!! Comments keep me writing! <3


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